Glassdoor has selected “fatigue” as its word of the year, and it is not hard to see why. After several turbulent years in the labor market, workers are simply worn out. Hiring has cooled, layoffs have continued, and many employees feel pressure to hold onto the jobs they have — all of which has compounded into widespread burnout.
According to Chris Martin, lead researcher on Glassdoor’s economic research team, “We’ve had a lot of sustained anxiety, and that sustained anxiety is leading to fatigue.” That tracks with the platform’s previous selections. In 2023, the word of the year was “anxiety,” and in 2022, the inaugural pick was “return-to-office.”
The Glassdoor team evaluates rising terms across posts, comments, and reviews, then chooses the one that best captures the year’s workplace sentiment. In 2025, usage of “fatigue” rose 41 percent. While that bump was modest compared with breakout terms like “tariff” (up 860 percent) or the AI-driven “agentic” (up 2,244 percent), “fatigue” resonated more directly with the day-to-day experience of working people.
Other terms trending upward included “stagflation”—a throwback to the 1970s—along with “misaligned” and “disengagement,” the kind of jargon that tends to thrive on LinkedIn feeds and Zoom calls. Still, none captured the zeitgeist as clearly as “fatigue.”
As always, Glassdoor is far from the only organization naming a defining word of the year. The Economist chose “slop,” a nod to the proliferation of low-quality AI-generated content. Oxford went with “rage bait,” and Dictionary.com selected “6 7,” which remains a mystery to most adults.
But in the workplace, the story feels simpler: it has been another exhausting year. If nothing else, Glassdoor’s choice underscores a workforce that is overextended, under-rested, and ready for a break — even as companies and websites continue their spirited year-end tradition of trend-spotting.