Employee satisfaction in the U.S. isn’t just a function of paychecks, politics, or geography. That’s the key insight from BambooHR’s Employee Happiness by State report, based on employee Net Promoter Score® (eNPS) data collected throughout 2025 from thousands of workers across the country.
Analyzing sentiment from over 500 U.S. companies, the report challenges the notion that low turnover automatically signals a healthy workforce. In many states, employees remain in place not because they’re engaged, but because they feel stuck—creating a hidden risk of disengagement and burnout.
The 2025 national average eNPS score was 43, indicating overall favorable sentiment, but with wide variation across states:
- Rhode Island led the nation with an average eNPS of 63.
- New Hampshire ranked last at 24, showing that neighboring states can have drastically different engagement outcomes.
- Income, politics, and industry mix were poor predictors of happiness: high- and low-scoring states were evenly split across historical red and blue regions and spanned both wealthy and lower-income areas.
The report identifies a major labor-market pattern: low turnover does not always equal high engagement. Large states like New York, California, and Connecticut showed low satisfaction yet also low turnover, highlighting the risks of complacency when relying solely on retention metrics.
Four Labor-Market Realities
By pairing eNPS with turnover data, BambooHR identifies four categories that shape employee experience:
- Ideal Stability: High satisfaction, low turnover. The best-case scenario.
- Healthy Dynamism: High satisfaction, high turnover. Employees are happy but often move to new opportunities.
- Acute Attrition: Low satisfaction, high turnover. Dissatisfaction drives exits.
- Hidden Risk: Low satisfaction, low turnover. Employees are disengaged but remain in place—a silent threat to performance and culture.
According to the study, hidden risk states represent the largest and most consequential group, where low satisfaction may mask systemic disengagement.
Why Employers Should Care
The data suggests that employee happiness is influenced more by labor-market dynamics than by geography, income, or politics. States with similar demographics and industries can display very different engagement outcomes depending on mobility opportunities and retention pressures.
BambooHR’s findings emphasize that turnover alone is an insufficient measure of workforce health. Employers must look at sentiment metrics like eNPS, alongside performance and engagement indicators, to identify hidden risks and prevent quiet quitting, burnout, and reduced productivity.
Methodology
The report analyzed aggregated and anonymized eNPS data from thousands of U.S. companies using the BambooHR platform in 2025. Only states with at least 100 responses per quarter were included, resulting in all states except Mississippi being reported. Turnover metrics were drawn from aggregated workforce activity, while eNPS was derived from employee survey responses.
The study pairs engagement scores with turnover to highlight where employees may feel disengaged but remain in their roles, providing actionable insights for HR leaders.
BambooHR’s eNPS tool allows organizations to track employee sentiment over time, benchmark engagement across teams and locations, and combine it with workforce metrics to assess retention risk in a meaningful way
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