Americans' confidence in their job security has gone from a record high to an all-time low

Coronavirus.
(Image credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Americans were feeling pretty good about their job security, an annual Gallup showed. Now, that confidence is all but gone.

For the past 45 years, Gallup has conducted surveys to get a sense of how fearful Americans were about getting laid off within 12 months. In 2019, 8 percent of those surveyed were afraid of losing their jobs. That's not an insignificant amount by any means, but it did match an all-time low since Gallup began tracking responses to this particular question.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.