Glassdoor Just Released Its Word Of The Year, And It Doesn't Sound Good
PeopleImages | ShutterstockAs we near the end of the year, people are looking back on 2025 and reflecting on all of the highs and lows it brought. For some, this means trying to sum up all of the craziness that occurred over 365 days in some kind of succinct way.
Glassdoor, the platform that allows users to both search for new jobs and discuss their current roles, released its own word of the year for 2025. In a year that was riddled with technological advancement, job market concerns, and a growing cost-of-living crisis, there are a lot of different avenues they could have gone down. Ultimately, their choice was a bit depressing, but nothing if not relatable.
Glassdoor’s word of the year for 2025 is ‘fatigue.’
If you felt sluggish this year and thought you might be falling behind, you aren’t alone. Glassdoor described the perfect storm of layoff fears and political turmoil that occurred in 2025 as leading to “a workforce running on empty.” The word “fatigue” was used 41% more often in the Glassdoor Community this year.
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It appears that current events played a big role in this increase in fatigue among workers. In April, Glassdoor conducted a survey on 1,000 American employees and asked, “Do you feel like events in the news are draining your energy at work?” Seventy-eight percent of respondents said yes.
Whereas many people used to avoid talking about politics in the workplace, it seems inevitable now. Gallup reported that 45% of workers in the U.S. talked to a co-worker about a political issue in 2024. One Glassdoor user, who identified themselves as a senior manager, said, “I wore my ‘I Voted’ sticker to the office and had to take it off because people kept using it as an invitation to debate.” It’s not surprising that a year marked by such a complicated political climate left us all feeling fatigued.
Of course, economic and job-related concerns were also at the forefront of people’s minds.
Glassdoor users were particularly worried about stagflation, which was mentioned three times more on the website in 2025 than it was in 2024. Several Glassdoor members lamented the fact that the small raises at their companies could not keep up with inflation.
2025 was also a year of layoffs, with CNBC reporting the total for the year was 1.17 million, the most the workforce has faced since the COVID pandemic. Glassdoor mentioned “professionals expressing job search overwhelm and job security fears time and time again.”
Unsurprisingly, AI was a big deal as well. An employee at PWC asked, “Anyone else a bit overwhelmed with progress around AI? … Things are moving too fast, and there’s so much uncertainty.” Uses of the word “agentic,” a new form of AI technology, increased 2,244% on Glassdoor during the year. People have good reason to be concerned. According to the World Economic Forum, 92 million jobs could be replaced by AI by the year 2030.
It’s no wonder that we’re all exhausted.
Tumultuous current events, inflation, enormous layoffs, and the continued advancement of AI — is it really any wonder that everyone is completely fatigued by now? Really, Glassdoor couldn’t have picked a better word to sum up 2025.
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Computer science professor Cal Newport has actually dubbed the era we’re in “The Great Exhaustion.” Burnout coach Emily Ballesteros explained, “The three factors that are commonly overlooked but that I believe are contributing the most are unsustainable lifestyles, exposure to stress outside of our control, and financial insecurity.”
We all feel fatigued, and things like work and money are contributing to that. Of course, we can’t all just stop working or paying the bills. This leaves us in a vulnerable position, which means we can be easily impacted by stress and exhaustion. Although everyone just goes with the flow at this point, this health crisis must be addressed if we’re going to be the best versions of ourselves.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
