Stay on Top of Enterprise Technology Trends Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community

[qi:010] It was only a matter of time until the economic downturn started chipping away at the confidence U.S. employees harbored towards their job safety earlier this year. As employers have continued to make cutbacks over the last six months, more Americans say they’re willing to bite the bullet and make job concessions if it increases their job safety, Glassdoor, a Sausalito, Calif.-based startup, found in a recent survey.

Dismal Outlook The majority (86%)of employees and those self employed think their company outlook will be the same (47%) or better (39%) in the next six months

Outlook is much bleaker for employees at companies that have laid off/communicated plans to lay off employes in the past 6 months, as 23% expect their company to perform worse, compared to 9% of those workers whose companies have not initiated or communicated plans to lay off during this time period.

Fewer employees are expecting a pay raise or a cost-of-living increase in the next 12 months than we saw in the previous two quarters. In Q2, nearly one-third of employees expected a pay increase or a cost-of-living increase in the next 12 months (32%), while 50% do not.

To keep their jobs, employees are more willing to take on more projects and responsibility (71%) and work more hours (64%) than certain other concessions.

Employees who work for companies that have laid off/communicated plans to lay off in the past 6 months have more than twice the concerns (39%) about being laid off in the next six months than those who work for companies that haven’t (17%). Source: Glassdoor

Six months ago, more than half of U.S. employees couldn’t fathom taking a pay cut, but now 42 percent are willing receive a lower paycheck if it increases the likelihood that they’ll keep their jobs. Employees are also willing to do more than just take a pay decrease — nearly three-quarters are willing to take on more responsibilities at work and 64 percent would work longer hours to increase their job security. That rise could be contributed to the fact that one-third of employees believe it’s unlikely they will find a job within six months if they were laid off, a view that remained unchanged from earlier this year. Plus, there’s a lot more job competition than before since unemployment hit a 26 year-high in June.

It’s no surprise that salary expectations have come down sharply from six months ago as bonus cuts are becoming more common. Fifty percent of employees believe they won’t get a pay raise in the next twelve months, up ten percent from this past December. This isn’t much of a surprise as slightly more than twenty percent reported their employers cut bonus amounts in the last six months.

A sliver of optimism remains: only one-in-four American employees fear they will be laid off in the next six months, down two percent from December 2008. Employees who work at companies that have recently gone through layoffs are more fearful, however, as 39 percent say they’re concerned about being laid off in the same period. Even though more employees are willing to work harder with less pay just to keep their jobs, many still think they’re less likely to be on the chopping block than their colleagues — 41 percent think their employers will lay off their other colleagues rather than themselves. What do they say — bad things happen to other people.