While most employees aren't worried about layoffs, remote workers are less secure

Over 90,000 people have lost their jobs in the tech sector over the last few months, with companies like Twitter, Meta, Salesforce, Amazon, and Snap, among numerous others, having fired hundreds, if not thousands, of their employees.

Despite that, the majority of workers don't seem to be all that concerned that they, or someone else in their household, will meet the same fate.

According to the CNBC|Momentive Workforce Survey released this week, 59% of the 10,002 workers surveyed in late November and early December said they aren’t concerned they will lose their jobs, and 26% said they aren’t concerned at all about potential layoffs.

Of course, when broken down, the data shows some inequities in those feelings, both in terms of both racial lines and gender, as well as economic status: while 33% of white workers are concerned about layoffs, the same applies to 57% of Asians, 53% of Hispanics and 47% of Black workers. Female workers are more likely to be concerned about layoffs than their male colleagues, 41% versus 38%. 

Not surprisingly, the higher someone's wages, aka the higher their financial security, the less likely they are to be concerned; while 47% of workers earning less than $50,000 are concerned that they or someone in their household will be laid off or lose their job, only 37% of those earning between $50,000 and $99,999 said the same, and the number drops to 30% of those earning between $100,000 and $150,000 and 25% of those earning more than $150,000. 

While the vast majority of those surveyed said they could find a job relatively quickly (80% said they would find one that pays the same within six months, and 36% said they would find one within one month), remote workers don't have that same confidence.

Only 24% of those working fully remotely say that if they lost their current job they could find a new job with similar pay in less than a month, while 41% of fully in-person employees said the same.

One key piece that informs worker confidence is their own satisfaction with their jobs: 86% of those who said the overall morale at their company is “excellent” also say their company is prepared to handle a recession; that is compared to 42% of those who say the moral at their company is poor. Those who are satisfied with their current job are also more likely to say their company is prepared to weather a recession than those who are dissatisfied with their job, 79% versus 49%.