Nearly two-thirds of working Americans responding to a Labor Day survey doubt they will ever be able to retire.

New York-based StrategyOne surveyed 1,043 Americans, including 613 who work either full or part time. The survey was conducted between Aug. 20 and Aug. 23. The margin of sampling error at the 95 percent level of confidence for the worker population is  plus or minus 3.96 percent overall and larger for subgroups.

Nearly two in three (64 percent) believe that realistically they won’t ever be able to stop working and retire, and the uncertainty of the long-term picture may help explain the divide among American workers over whether they believe they labor at a job (52 percent) or in a long-term career (48 percent).

The current economic downturn has produced a situation where almost half (46 percent) of workers have had their wages or salaries reduced over the past couple of years, and a similar segment are concerned about losing their jobs (44 percent) or having their hours cut back (48 percent).

“While employed Americans on the whole enjoy their work and get satisfaction from it, there is a real sense that the retirement ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ may not be there for them,” said Bradley Honan, senior vice president of StrategyOne.

The vast majority of the 613 employed Americans who were surveyed describe themselves as satisfied with their jobs (82 percent) and report they get satisfaction from their work (80 percent).  About three out of four (72 percent) also said they enjoy where they work and look forward to coming to work every day.

Equally high percentages of workers said they feel respected by their bosses (83 percent) and feel their boss respects their work (82 percent). Co-workers also got high marks, with three out of four Americans (74 percent) saying their colleagues are among the best things about where they work.

On the flip side, the StrategyOne survey found that a surprising number of workers are disconnected from the mission of their company. Thirty-five percent of the American workers surveyed report not caring much about their company and say they are mainly there to get a paycheck, and 38 percent report not knowing what the main mission of their organization is, other than making money. 

Fifty-six percent of the survey respondents say they would be interested in leaving their job if they could get the same compensation elsewhere.