US employee sentiment improved in September for the first time in five months, but the change was far from broad-based: 10 of the 19 industries tracked by ADP Research still lost ground.
The Employee Motivation and Commitment Index rose one point to 127 after falling to 126 in August. Finance Gazette's analysis of the industry breakdown shows that 52.6% of the industries measured nevertheless recorded weaker sentiment. That was an improvement on August, when 12 of 19 industries, or 63.2%, declined, but it still leaves a majority moving against the direction of the headline index.
September therefore looks less like a broad rebound than an interruption in the deterioration seen since the spring. There are signs that the weakness became less widespread, but those signs sit alongside some unusually poor individual industry readings and an overall index that remains well below its 2025 peak.
The headline EMC Index rose to 132 in April after seven consecutive months of decline. It then slipped to 131 in May, 130 in June and 129 in July before falling three points to 126 in August. September's rise to 127 ended that sequence of four successive monthly declines.
| Month | EMC Index | Change |
|---|---|---|
| April 2026 | 132 | +3 |
| May 2026 | 131 | -1 |
| June 2026 | 130 | -1 |
| July 2026 | 129 | -1 |
| August 2026 | 126 | -3 |
| September 2026 | 127 | +1 |
The six-month path puts the September move into perspective. The index remains five points below April and 22 points below the record high of 149 reached in August 2025. ADP had already noted in August that the index was at its lowest level since January 2025 after falling 23 points from that record.
One month of improvement does not establish a new trend. Mary Hayes, research director of People and Performance at ADP Research, made that qualification in the September release, saying it remained to be seen whether the improvement marked the beginning of one.
There is nevertheless a measurable change beneath the aggregate figure. The number of industries losing ground fell from 12 in August to 10 in September. Expressed as a share of the 19 industries tracked in both releases, deterioration narrowed from 63.2% to 52.6%, a decline of about 10.5 percentage points.
That calculation should not be confused with an employment-weighted measure of the economy. Each industry counts once in the comparison regardless of its workforce size. It demonstrates that falling sentiment became less widespread across ADP's published industry categories, not that the magnitude of aggregate weakness declined by 10.5%.
The September industry data also contains several developments that sit uneasily with the rise in the headline index.
Real estate recorded the largest decline, falling 25 points to 84, its weakest reading since June 2023. ADP describes the industry's sentiment measure as typically volatile, but the September drop was still the largest among the 19 industries covered.
Accommodation and food services fell to 76, the lowest level in a series stretching back to August 2024. The industry had already suffered the largest decline in the August release, dropping 21 points to 78. September therefore pushed an already depressed reading to a new series low.
Mining also reached a series low at 90, while educational services dropped to 102, its weakest level since March 2024. In the other direction, health care recorded September's largest industry increase, gaining 12 points to 131, while utilities added 10 points to 79.
The combination helps explain how the aggregate index can improve even while a majority of industry measures decline. September contained substantial movements in both directions rather than a uniform shift in worker sentiment.
The breakdown by type of work gives the September improvement broader support.
Sentiment among repetitive-task workers rose six points to 113, its strongest reading since December 2025. Knowledge-worker sentiment increased one point to 118, while the skilled-task index was unchanged at 125. None of the three worker-type measures fell during September.
That contrasts with August, when knowledge-worker sentiment fell six points to 117 and repetitive-task sentiment dropped five points to 107, while the skilled-task measure was unchanged.
The worker-type data therefore provides a stronger case for improvement than the industry figures alone. September did not merely produce a higher overall EMC Index; two of ADP's three worker categories improved and the third held steady.
It is still too early to turn that into evidence of a sustained recovery. The value of the September release lies instead in the difference between the various parts of the survey: improvement is appearing, but it has not spread consistently across industries.
The employer-size breakdown is also mixed, although more categories improved or remained stable than deteriorated.
ADP said sentiment rose or held steady in five of its seven employer-size categories. Workers at organisations employing between 51 and 149 people recorded the largest increase, gaining 10 points to 119, their strongest reading since December.
At employers with 500 to 999 workers, however, sentiment fell seven points to 102, the weakest reading for that group since May 2025. The index for organisations with 150 to 499 workers was unchanged at 107, remaining at its lowest level since May 2024.
This reinforces the broader interpretation of the September data. The improvement is genuine enough to appear beyond the headline measure, particularly among worker types and several employer-size groups, but it is not sufficiently widespread to describe the month as a general recovery in employee sentiment.
ADP collects survey data from a stratified random panel sample of 2,500 US workers each month. The September survey was fielded from September 3 to September 8.
The EMC Index should not, however, be read as a simple snapshot consisting solely of those September responses. ADP moved the headline index to a three-month rolling-average methodology in January 2025, while industry measures have been presented on that basis since October 2024. The approach is intended to smooth short-term fluctuations and make longer-running trends easier to identify.
That makes September's one-point rise more appropriately interpreted as a modest change in the recent trend than as a sudden shift in worker attitudes during a single week.
It also matters what the EMC Index does not measure. The survey concerns workers' motivation and commitment to their jobs and employers. A falling real estate or hospitality reading is therefore not, by itself, evidence that employment, vacancies or economic output in those industries fell.
September breaks the four-month decline in the overall index and reduces the breadth of industry deterioration. Those are meaningful changes. Yet 10 of 19 industries still weakened, several reached notable lows and the headline index remains 22 points below the record reached just over a year earlier.
The most defensible reading is therefore narrower than either “employee sentiment recovered” or “worker sentiment continued to deteriorate.”
ADP's September data shows the decline becoming less broadly distributed while improvement emerges elsewhere in the survey. Whether that develops into a sustained change in direction will require more than one monthly release.
ADP is scheduled to publish the next EMC Index on October 20.
