5 Insights From the 2025 Just Jobs Performance Tracker Every Workforce Leader Needs To Know

Contents:

• Pre-2025 Performance Remained Steady 
• Early Insight on 2025 Trends
• JUST Jobs Leadership Spans Industries
• Wages & Compensation and Benefits Are Areas of Opportunity
• With American Jobs Top of Mind for Many, Is Reshoring Jobs Enough for Americans? 

Amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and emerging AI-driven labor market disruptions, workforce leaders face the dual challenge of investing meaningfully in their workforce and demonstrating their value proposition to meet rising employee expectations.

What do Americans want from their employers? The public tells us year after year that fair wages matter most, but they also clearly indicate that pay alone doesn’t define a good job. Across every demographic group, Americans consistently prioritize benefits, worker well-being, ethical leadership, and transparent communication as hallmarks of just companies.

The JUST Jobs Performance Tracker supports Russell 1000 leaders facing tough decisions on their human capital strategy through comprehensive access to benchmarking data and leading workforce practices. This singular destination is built to help enhance job quality, strengthen recruitment and retention, and unlock organizational excellence. 

The business case for JUST jobs is compelling: As of June 11, 2025 JUST Capital’s Workers Index has outperformed its Russell 1000 benchmark by 16.6% since its inception in December 2021. The Workers Index tracks the top 20% of Russell 1000 companies with high performance on Worker issues in the annual Ranking of America’s Most JUST Companies.

This Performance Tracker is the third iteration of a tool formerly known as the JUST Jobs Scorecard, building on earlier versions with updated company data, refreshed benchmarks, and an enhanced peer comparison feature to provide deeper insight. It is accessible within the JUST Intelligence platform.

Methodology

The JUST Jobs Performance Tracker enables companies to assess disclosure and performance on 27 data points across five key topic areas that are foundational to quality jobs: Wages & Compensation; Benefits; Hiring & Stability; Training & Development; Employee Wellness & Belonging. To develop the JUST Jobs Performance Tracker, JUST Capital assessed corporate disclosure and performance on these data points, scoring companies on a continuum of practice from 0 points for no disclosure through 4 points for leading practice. 

Companies earn JUST Jobs Leadership designation by achieving an overall average score at or above 3.00, and can earn Top Performer status through earning a perfect 4.00 on all data points within any one topic area or Top in Industry for achieving the highest average score for their industry on the data points in a given topic area. 

Additional methodological details can be found here.

Here are our findings:

Pre-2025 Performance Remained Steady 

The JUST Jobs Performance Tracker, based on data collected through November 2024, reveals a continued overall trend of steady employee policy transparency and workforce investment despite early indications of an evolving social and political environment. 

Notably, the proportion of companies earning the lowest possible score (0.00) decreased for every topic, indicating attention to disclosure across key job categories. 

And disclosure rates in the tracker increased between 2024 and 2025 for almost all data points. The following saw some of the more notable jumps, indicating an increased focus on building a robust talent pipeline:

• Average Hours of Training or Career Development per Employee: 46% of companies disclose compared to 40% in 2024, an increase of 57 companies  
• Internal Hiring Rate: Disclosure increased from 11% of companies in 2024 to 17% in 2025, an increase of 55 companies 
• Veteran Hiring Policy: Disclosure of a Veteran Hiring policy increased from 35% in 2024 to 40% in 2025, an increase of 43 companies
• Days of Paid Time Off or Vacation: Over a third (34%) of companies now disclose compared to 28% last year, an increase of 50 companies

Early Insight on 2025 Trends

Pressure around non-financial reporting has become even more complex between 2024 and 2025. So far, in 2025, our ongoing tracking of key disclosures – including workforce policies – indicates that company impact report releases are down by 27% compared to this time last year. It is too early to say whether this is a delay or a retreat. While company leaders have told us they are being more cautious about how and when they communicate their stakeholder efforts in today’s environment, the work continues internally. Corporate leaders tell us they’re being more strategic about tying every initiative directly to business value and managing legal risks. We expect to have clearer visibility on how this context impacts disclosure trends by Q4.

This business-based caution stands in contrast to our understanding of public demand for transparency. Our survey work finds increased support year over year for disclosure across all categories – including minimum wage and average wage for different worker demographic groups. Meanwhile, the American public ranked “Communicates transparently” as the #4 priority issue for business behavior in 2024, followed by “Provides benefits and work life balance” and “Supports workforce advancement and training”. 

JUST Jobs Leadership Spans Industries

Representation of overall JUST Jobs leadership across industries demonstrates a continued investment in job quality and disclosure across the U.S. workforce.

Consistent with 2024, the JUST Jobs Leaders each represent a different industry with a range in workforce compositions:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company: Computer Services
• HP Inc: Technology Hardware
• Bank of America Corporation: Banks
• Union Pacific Corp: Transportation
• American Water Works Company Inc: Utilities
• Bank of New York – BNY: Capital Markets

Three companies were just shy of reaching the overall average score required to be named an overall JUST Jobs Leader, but still outperformed their peers: 

• Synchrony Financial: Transaction Processing 
• Trane Technologies: Building Materials & Construction 
• Dow Inc: Chemicals 

Wages & Compensation and Benefits Are Areas of Opportunity

Company disclosure tends to lag across industries on all but a few Wages & Compensation metrics. With wage-related issues as the American public’s top priority, especially amidst rising cost of living, this provides an area in which companies can take advantage of an existing transparency gap and emphasize their employee value proposition. 

Additionally, while companies are sharpening their benefits policies and improving offerings for employees, few in the JUST Jobs Performance Tracker are providing what experts and company examples indicate is leading practice. By investing in comprehensive benefits and transparent communication, companies can stand out in meeting the expectations of the American workforce.

A few key policies with wide-ranging public support have relatively low disclosure, and indicate where companies looking to demonstrate leadership can differentiate themselves through disclosure of existing policies:

• Living Wage Statement (11% disclosure)
• Minimum Wage or Salary Rate (12%)
• Days of Sick Leave (13%)
• Workforce Re-entry Opportunities (13%)
• Race/Ethnicity Pay Equity Ratio ensuring equal pay for equal work (14%) 

With American Jobs Top of Mind for Many, is Reshoring Jobs Enough for Americans? 

The transparency gaps and opportunities outlined above reflect a broader shift in the American employment landscape, one that has significant implications for the current administration’s domestic job creation goals. While the administration has prioritized reshoring manufacturing jobs and creating employment opportunities domestically, our polling reveals that Americans aren’t simply seeking any employment — they’re searching for quality positions that offer genuine value and security. 

Manufacturing — a focal point in the administration’s job creation strategy — presents a mixed picture of job quality in the JUST Jobs Performance Tracker. Key manufacturing industries such as Aerospace & Defense, Automobile & Parts, Energy Equipment & Services, Semiconductors & Equipment, and Utilities show a wide range in performance across core job quality metrics. 

While these industries tend to score well on Training & Development and Employee Wellness & Belonging, they lag on Wages & Compensation and Benefits — two areas workers consistently rank as top priorities. Even within lower-performing topics, variation exists: Energy Equipment & Services’s top Wages and Benefits scores are among the lowest across all industries on both compensation-related topics, whereas Utilities performs relatively well on Wages & Compensation, and Semiconductors & Equipment is strong on Benefits.

Utility companies may offer a positive blueprint for building JUST Jobs among a domestic workforce. Although there is significant room for improvement on key job quality practices and disclosures, Utilities led all 36 industries in the JUST Capital universe with the highest average overall score. American Water Works achieved JUST Jobs Leadership designation, leading the industry in Training & Development and Employee Wellness & Belonging. Another domestic utility company American Electric Power is top in the Utilities industry on Wages & Compensations and discloses key benefits including paid parental leave, sick leave, and paid time off.