Mid-Atlantic Stats: What Workplace Data Says, Regionally

Every year, TriNet surveys employers and employees across the country to understand what's actually happening inside businesses. Not what the headlines say, but what the people running teams and working in them are genuinely experiencing. This year, we went deeper. For the first time, the 2025 State of Work report includes regional breakdowns across seven distinct markets in the United States. We've been releasing them one at a time, and this final installment turns to the Mid-Atlantic region: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The 2025 State of Work: Mid-Atlantic draws from a survey of 128 employers and 125 employees across the nine states. It covers five themes: how people feel about their hours and work/life balance, empowerment and skills development, the significance of benefits, the demand for 24/7 HR, and AI in HR.

In each area, we compare what employers believe against what employees report. What emerges in the Mid-Atlantic isn't one big gap. It's the same small gap, repeated across nearly everything that matters for retention.

That's the finding worth sitting with employers in the Mid-Atlantic consistently see the employee experience as better than employees report living it. 88.3% of employers say they're satisfied with their work/life balance, but only 73.0% of employees say the same, a 15-point gap. 76.4% of employers think their team works the right number of hours; only 51.0% of employees agree, a 25-point gap. 96.1% of employers believe their workforce is engaged; 82.4% of employees say the same. Each gap is modest. None of them are nothing.

The job search numbers raise the stakes. 73.6% of Mid-Atlantic employers believe 25% or fewer of their workforce is looking for a new job. Employee data tells a different story: 35.2% say they plan to switch jobs within the year, and another 21.6% aren't actively searching but would leave for the right opportunity. That's 56.8% of employees not fully locked in, a number most employers in the region aren't accounting for.

What makes the Mid-Atlantic data worth reading carefully is where the workload picture diverges. 76.4% of employers think their team is working the right number of hours. Only 51.0% of employees agree, and 37.0% report working 41 or more hours a week. That's a 25-point perception gap on a factual question, wider than most of what shows up in this report. On AI, employees have quietly become power users for one specific job: applying it to workplace communication and team coordination, even in categories where employers show less certainty about the fit. On empowerment, skills, and reasons to leave, the same optimism gap shows up in familiar shapes: employers see the picture as slightly better than employees experience it, and the gaps compound.

The report isn't a verdict on how Mid-Atlantic employers are doing. Most of the businesses reflected in this data are deeply invested in their people, and the region shows real strength in how aligned employers and employees are on core benefits and mental health coverage. What it offers is visibility, a clearer picture of where optimism might be running ahead of reality, and where the opportunity sits for employers who want to close that gap before it shows up in turnover.

TriNet works with businesses across the Mid-Atlantic to help them see that gap clearly, through HR support backed by real people, benefits best practice guidance grounded in what employees value, and expertise that understands what it means to operate in this market.

The 2025 State of Work: Mid Atlantic is available now. Download it free and see where the data lands for your business. 

This is the seventh and final installment in our regional series. Over the past several months we've released the Southeast, California, New York and New Jersey, Southern Central, Greater West, and Great Lakes and New England reports. Each region tells a different story, and this closes the 2025 regional series.

→ Download the 2025 State of Work: Mid Atlantic 

→ Talk to a TriNet HR expert about what the data means for your business