What's trending in global financial health?
When employees have strong financial health, they experience better overall wellbeing and bring their best selves to the work. Tracking financial health is essential in today’s workplace to understand the current financial mindset of your employees across the globe to determine the right course of action to support disparate employee wellbeing needs.
Each quarter, nudge checks the financial health of its global 1.5 million user community across five pillars of financial wellbeing, powering both platform personalization and insights for clients The start of 2024 reveals an overall global financial health score of 58/100.
Across the five pillars the top trends include:
Borrowing and Spending health is high. On average across the globe people have confidence in managing day-to-day finances and keep their debt manageable. By learning more about borrowing and spending it helps people to navigate inflation and cost of living - it’s boosting financial health as a result.
Low scores for Planning (future-planning for life after work). People are focused on managing their current financial situation, rather than preparing for the future. The age at which you can access retirement funding is increasing, so people need better support to prioritize financial planning for life after work.
Top trending global financial interests include Couples finances, Tax, Retirement. The most popular financial topics reflect the day-to-day focus of the financial health score but with attention looking to the future.
Financial health broken down by region:
North America’s overall financial health score is the highest, 5 points higher than the global average. The US population has higher confidence in their finances as people come out stronger post economic shock, and feel optimistic about the market improving next year.
- NOAM is the healthiest in learning, planning and saving but needs support in borrowing.
- APAC needs support in planning for the future.
- LATAM is has the strongest knowledge of borrowing
- EMEA does well in spending and planning but sits in the middle across all the pillars.
Industry financial health comparisons:
Continued growth of the tech sector has had a positive impact on its workforce, putting Tech as the industry with the strongest financial health. Previously Pharma was top and has moved down to no. 3, possibly due to a cumulative drop in market cap. Financial Services is at no. 2 and that is a consistent ranking for that industry. FMCG and Legal round out the top 5 again.