The U.S. economy grew at a 3.6% annualized pace in the fourth quarter of 2025. Corporate profits as a share of GDP reached a post-World War II high. On paper, the numbers look solid.

But inside organizations, something else is happening.

According to KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk, the resilience of the economy “feels more illusory than real.”

Growth is real. So are the profits. What is not flowing is the money to the people doing the work. Organizations are capturing gains at a historic rate while employee compensation falls further behind, and workers know it. For HR leaders, that gap has a name, a face and a cost.

KPMG’s February 2026 Economic Compass report, written by Swonk, notes that “preliminary data suggest we ended 2025 with robust growth but without generating jobs.” The report claims that “growth decoupled from employment” due to productivity gains, AI‑driven investment, tariff dynamics and sector‑specific job cuts, especially in government.

The report noted that only healthcare and social assistance “really added jobs in a meaningful way,” underscoring how narrow the employment engines were relative to the broad sources of GDP growth.

The gap workers feel

KPMG’s data shows credit delinquencies hit their highest level since 2017 in late 2025, with subprime borrowers and Gen X workers carrying student loans feeling it most acutely. Luxury travel and first-class bookings are up while economy seats and budget hotel rooms sit empty, a split that maps almost perfectly onto what HR professionals see inside their own organizations: two workforces, sometimes sitting in the same open office, experiencing entirely different economic realities.

KPMG describes this divergence as a potential “revolution chart,” a measure of inequality that, left unaddressed, generates social and economic instability. For HR leaders, that instability does not stay outside the building. It walks in every morning. Workers who are quietly managing debt, who cannot afford a new car, who are watching corporate earnings reports while their own wages stagnate, are not arriving at work as confident, fully engaged contributors.

Employees feel pressure

The career consequences are measurable. New survey data from MyPerfectResume found that 43% of U.S. workers experience impostor syndrome at work, and 66% feel pressure to appear more confident or knowledgeable than they actually are.

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