Impact & Research
Findings and leanings from our text-line, technology, community, and partnerships.
Empower Work Impact
2025 Impact Report
Corporate restructuring, artificial intelligence, and uncertainty at the federal level — the reality felt by small businesses and low-income workers was a stagnant job market and the worst non-recession year for jobs since 2003. Long-term unemployment rose sharply in 2025, reaching 25.7% of all unemployed workers and unemployment remained elevated at 4.3%, similar to levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2024 Impact Report
We saw an immense surge in text line conversations about job loss and prolonged job searches — more than doubling from 22% in 2023 to 54%. Four out of five workers — over 78% — are actively looking for work because they are dissatisfied, underemployed, or unemployed and that job searches are taking nearly half a year.
2023 Impact Report
While headlines and research tend to focus on mid-to-large sized companies with “white collar” workforces, nearly half of U.S. workers are employed at companies with fewer than 500 people and nearly 80% of workers earn less than $75,000/year. The daily challenges they’re experiencing — from safety concerns to disrespect to lack of job mobility — feel unheard and unseen.
Research
The Hidden Realities of Job Searching in 2024
Larger economic data for most of this year points to strong labor participation and low unemployment, with signs over July and August of a softening of the job market.
Yet, there is a story going untold: the majority of workers do not feel like the job market is good - and it’s taking a toll emotionally and economically. Nearly four out of five workers want jobs and can’t find them.
The State of Vulnerable Workers 2022: Unsafe and Disrespected
Since mid-2020, workplaces across the United States have experienced a “great disruption.” Yet, the data and headlines paint an incomplete picture. We know 47.8 million workers quit their jobs in 2021, an average of 4 million, or 3% of the workforce, per month. We also know that the overall labor force participation rate has been dropping for a decade. Increasing numbers of people eligible to work are not working.
How Manager Relationships Contribute to the Gender Pay Gap
A range of issues impact the pay gap, from occupational segregation to differences in hours, caregiving bias to discrimination and harassment. Overall, in the same jobs, women are paid less than men in 97 percent of occupations. And where do workers experience much of this? In their manager relationships. Managers are the single most important factor determining hiring and firing decisions, hours, performance reviews, time off and flexibility determinations, benefits, and compensation.
2020: How COVID-19 Is Impacting American Workers
COVID-19 is a tsunami, traveling in multiple directions with job, health, mental health, and family all its path. It’s no surprise: the impact on workers has been devastating.
Eighty-nine percent of respondents said the coronavirus had affected their work, with only 5 percent saying it had not and 4 percent saying they hadn’t yet been impacted on the job, but expected to be.
Case Studies
Lessons From Testing Navigational Career Support With Workforce Partners
landing a job is not the finish line. Workers who complete workforce programs and secure employment continue to face high-stakes moments, a difficult manager, a role that isn't working, a layoff that arrives without warning—and those moments are largely unaddressed by the systems that helped them get there. Navigational support delivered at exactly those points, in close partnership with the workforce organizations with the deepest roots in their community, could extend the impact of training and produce outcomes that hold.
Helping Workers Stay Connected During Unemployment: Connection Protection
When workers lose a job, they lose more than income — they lose stability, confidence, and the ability to stay connected while they try to rebuild. Cell phones aren’t a “nice-to-have” during unemployment; they’re how people apply for jobs, schedule interviews, coordinate childcare, and ask for help.
Connection Protection is a partnership between Visible by Verizon and Empower Work designed to keep workers connected through job hardship. The program provides three months of subsidized Visible wireless service to eligible Visible members experiencing job loss, reduced hours, or other work hardships, and connects them to Empower Work’s confidential peer counseling via text to process the moment and take steps forward.
Scaling Human Empathy: AI Assistance for Peer Counselors
When workplace stress or job loss strikes, people turn to Empower Work for free, confidential, real-time career counseling over text chat. Given rising economic and political uncertainty along with new workplace partnerships, Empower Work’s text line demand was growing, and we wanted to proactively ensure that our peer counselor volunteer base could match the need.