States felt confident about reopening. Then came a spike in COVID-19 cases

From late April through early June, Georgia governor Brian Kemp moved steadily to reopen his state’s economy. Restaurant seating returned. Live venues reopened. And at first, all that optimism seemed well-placed. 

“We are headed in the right direction in our battle with COVID-19,” Gov. Kemp declared on May 11, citing a drop in pandemic-related hospitalizations and new cases. 

Then everything turned. From early June onward, Georgia has been battling an increasingly fierce COVID-19 flare-up. The state’s largest city, Atlanta, is now trying to roll back much of the spring’s reopening measures, citing safety concerns. Meanwhile, other states that reopened their economies rapidly now face similar pressures. 

How much do these reversals affect the public’s outlook? A stark answer emerges from the U.S. edition of LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index. The poll surveys about 5,000 people every two weeks, asking how they feel about their job security, financial well-being and career outlook. Our research has run since early April, tracking how professional confidence has trended since the early days of the pandemic. Overall, U.S. confidence has ticked up slightly since April lows and is now at +31 on a scale from -100 to +100. However, that confidence varies greatly across the U.S. 

Looking at the 12 most populous states, ranging from California to Virginia, it’s clear that public mood swings are sharp. In most cases, overall confidence has been recovering in states where COVID-19 cases are waning. But anxieties have climbed when the case count goes up -- perhaps with a slight lag.

Workforce confidence matters to all of us, because it has huge economic and social implications. When confidence is rising, consumers step up spending for everything from expensive weddings to new homes and cars. Meanwhile, businesses are eager to hire. Optimism affects even people’s investment plans, job applications and learning rates. When confidence weakens, everything goes into reverse, creating hard-to-overcome recessionary pressures. 

As the chart above shows, most states with cautious reopening plans and declining COVID-19 case loads showed improving workforce confidence levels in June, compared with May. These include Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio.

By contrast, the states that reopened rapidly -- and encountered rising COVID-19 cases -- were far more likely to see confidence tumble. Georgia, for example, had been the most optimistic of the top-12 states in May, with a confidence index in the low 40s. But in June, when Georgia’s rate of COVID-19 cases climbed 65%, its workforce confidence score skidded to +30, leaving it tied for seventh place among the top-12 states.

This recent connection between rising COVID-19 cases and dwindling professional confidence relationship isn’t ironclad. 

Both California and Florida saw their workforce confidence scores increase in June, even though COVID-19 cases were surging. The full magnitude of both states’ COVID-19 challenges has become clear only this month, however. With officials in both California and Florida now debating possible rollbacks of open-economy steps, confidence measures for July could take a hit.

Meanwhile, Virginia saw a slight decline in its confidence score in June, to +36 from +38, even though COVID-19 cases inched lower in the month. Virginia has continued to reopen its economy, with a July 1 go-ahead for social gatherings of up to 250 people and the end of capacity restrictions for restaurants.

All the same, each of he three states with the sharpest drops in workforce confidence fits the profile of jurisdictions that reopened quickly in the spring, only to see COVID-19 cases spike — and a subsequent rollback or pausing of reopening plans. Besides Georgia, these include Texas (down 8 points in June from May’s level) and North Carolina (down 10 points in June).

“We need to hit the pause button while we work to stabilize our trends,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on June 24. His state’s lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases more than doubled in June, while hospitalizations also rose. The governor’s response included a new requirement that people wear face coverings in public. 

Similarly, Texas Governor Greg Abbott on June 26 reestablished bar closures and capacity limits on restaurants, explaining that “the actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health." 

Other notable findings from the latest Workforce Confidence report are as follows: 

Small business has its own heat map. In the northeast and far west, small-business employees exhibited rising confidence as 2020’s second quarter played out. The Southeast was the most upbeat region in April, but rising coronavirus cases in the region may have dampened confidence by June. 

Sometimes, it’s better to work outside your “natural” industry. People in media functions show higher confidence if they’re working for a non-media company. The same is true of people with art and design skills. But financial and legal specialists are most confident working within banks or law firms, rather than non-aligned industries. 

Millennials’ confidence is unshakeable. They’ve been the most confident generation since the Workforce Confidence Index’s first report, covering early April. The older baby boomers and Generation X are in the middle. The youngest, Generation Z, has been least confident. 

Even bosses were anxious in April, but not anymore. An analysis of confidence levels by seniority of job title shows that people ranked as vice presidents or higher have shown the greatest surge since April. Sentiment among middle management and individual contributors has hardly budged.

Workforce Confidence Index Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000+ U.S.-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. 

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for. Confidence index scores are calculated by assigning each respondent a score (-100, -50, 0, 50, 100) based on how much they agree or disagree with each of three statements, and then finding the composite average score across all statements. Scores are averaged across two waves of data collection to ensure an accurate trend reading. The three statements are: [Job Security] I feel confident about my ability to get or hold onto a job right now; [Finances] I feel confident about my ability to improve my financial situation in the next 6 months; [Career] I feel confident about my ability to progress in my career in the next year.

 Neil Basu, Ben Tjaden and Rudy Hernandez from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.