Employee Satisfaction and Stock Returns during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 Pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on how employees and employers operate. Employees, directly affected by workplace changes, may provide information regarding future efficiencies. As a result, crowdsourced employee satisfaction (ES) reviews mentioning the COVID-19 Pandemic may contain useful information regarding the future profitability of these firms. We utilize crowdsourced COVID-19 Pandemic specific ES obtained from Glassdoor.com to determine the impact on abnormal stock returns for public firms from March-December 2020. We find evidence that higher COVID-19 ES is related to higher abnormal stock returns. While non-COVID ES is found not to be related to abnormal stock returns.

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, Glassdoor, Employee Satisfaction, Abnormal Re-turns

JEL Classification: G12, G41, G39