Research sheds light on how to create workplaces where employees thrive

How do your employees see their jobs? Are they working in what they consider a “quality job”? Or are they going to work every day to a less-than-satisfying role—or maybe even a job that feels like drudgery? A recent research report looks at what makes a quality job and how many people have such jobs.

What makes a quality job?

A group of organizations focusing on employment—Jobs for the Future, The Families & Workers Fund, and W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research—teamed up to produce the American Job Quality Study, which was released in October 2025. The findings reveal new insights into the experiences American workers face every day.

To produce the report, Gallup surveyed more than 18,000 workers across industries, geographies, and job types.

The study defines a quality job as one that achieves minimum thresholds across at least three of the five dimensions that research shows matter most to both workers and their employers. Those five dimensions are: