From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Susanna Vogel

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Illustration of empty cubicle with chair and lamp on the ground 

Companies are laying off between 5% and 7% of their workers

Dan Kaplan, senior client partner at Korn Ferry, told HR Brew that employers are taking a ‘surgical’ approach to RIF.

It’s not your imagination—a lot of companies are laying off between 5% and 7% of their workers

Adam DeRose

jerry seinfeld in red restaurant booth looking at a check and being surprised by th 

Employees want salary increases, but if your company doesn’t have the coffers to fund them, HR has to get creative.

Wage growth still isn’t enough to fight persistent inflation

Aman Kidwai

Rope being pulled in two different directions

As uncertainty becomes the norm, HR leaders should look to build a more sustainable talent strategy with better L&D and a long-term vision.

The future of work will not be without conflict, report suggests

A one dollar bill torn in half with the word Inflation on it

Economy

An illustration of reporter Courtney Vinopal's headshot.

Courtney Vinopal

The Bureau of Labor Statistics didn’t release the October jobs report on Nov. 7 due to the government shutdown, marking the second consecutive month HR pros 

Other available reports show hiring demand remained cooler last month, while layoffs picked up. Employers announced 

 in October, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the highest level since Oct. 2003. Meanwhile, employers 

 last month, according to ADP, but that growth was concentrated among large businesses.

A few different headwinds could be influencing how HR teams are thinking about hiring strategy right now, experts told HR Brew. Among them is the shutdown itself, which may cause companies to lose money as federal workers pull back on their spending.

The hiring pickup that ADP tracked last month reversed two consecutive months of decline in August and September. This gain was “extremely uneven,” though, said Justin Ladner, senior labor economist with SHRM.

A few sectors drove job growth, with trade, transportation, and utilities firms adding 47,000 hires to their payrolls, and education and health services adding 25,000. These two industries, Ladner, said, “were really propping up the overall number.” Others, like information and leisure and hospitality, saw employment drop in October.

While businesses have been in “low-hire, low-fire” mode in recent months, the Challenger data points to a potential “no-hire, yes-fire job market,” said Mark Hamrick, Washington bureau chief for Bankrate. While state data hasn’t shown a “significant pickup in unemployment claims” yet, Challenger’s report could be an indicator of where jobless levels are headed, he said.

What’s affecting recruitment and retention? 

There’s a lot happening in the economy right now that can help explain why HR teams are in a holding pattern for hiring—or even 

 workers. Ladner pointed to companies investing in AI adoption, automating certain tasks, and pulling back on hiring for some roles as potential causes. Amazon and IBM are among the firms that are heavily invested in AI, and recently announced layoffs.

Still-high interest rates, inflation, and tariffs are also contributing to an overall environment of economic uncertainty. “You might imagine that there are a lot of firms that are holding off on investments simply because they don’t have a good sense of what the economy is going to look like,” Ladner said.

The ongoing federal government shutdown—now the longest in US history—is yet another factor that could further dampen employers’ hiring plans between now and the end of the year. Around 1.4 million federal workers are either furloughed or working without pay, and economists say this is likely to 

“As we look at these workers who are either furloughed or working without pay, that’s going to affect the way they spend money,” said Cory Stahle, senior economist with Indeed. “And so that's going to ultimately affect the businesses who are used to receiving the money.”

If there’s one reason to be optimistic about this labor market slowdown, Stahle said, “it represents a real opportunity for some employers,” especially those that are still hiring knowledge workers. At a time when many laid-off federal workers are seeking new opportunities, “there’s some real opportunities for employers to maybe hire some of these people while wages are a little softer and competition a little softer as well.”

October layoffs point to “no-hire, yes-fire” job market

AI, tariffs, and the government shutdown may all help explain why HR teams are in a holding pattern for hiring—or even having to conduct layoffs.

Private reports show uneven job gains, more layoffs in October 

Having a hard time wrapping your head around the labor market? Same.

New research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) released Monday reveals a complicated hiring picture for HR and talent acquisition (TA) pros. In the new report, Help Wanted: Understanding the US Labor Shortage, economists and researchers at SHRM outline an ongoing dynamic besetting job seekers and recruiters alike.

“We have more unemployed people than job openings, and while that is a helpful measure for us to understand and aggregate what is happening, it makes a key assumption, and that’s that any unemployed person can fill a particular job opening that is out there,” said James Atkinson, SHRM’s VP of thought leadership on a press call. “But of course, we all know that that’s not necessarily the case.”

The new report found an occupational mismatch between the open positions businesses need filled and the supply of unemployed people with the necessary experience. An occupational mismatch can hinder an employer from filling a role, and a job seeker from securing employment, as fewer and fewer job openings align with their job history.

SHRM set out to understand the impacts of an occupational mismatch between job seekers and openings.

“Organizations are struggling to fill positions because there’s not that supply of unemployed people with the necessary occupational experience,” Atkinson said. “On the flip side, we still hear those stories [that] unemployed people are struggling to find jobs that are based on the occupational experience that they have.”

The research noted that the unfillable job share—the percentage of roles that cannot be filled by an unemployed person whose last role was in the same occupation group—was at 32.7%.

“If we simply say, in order to fill a job, you have to have that particular occupational experience, we see that one in three job openings actually can’t be filled,” he said, adding that the problem is mirrored on the job seekers side: one in four job seekers can’t find a role in the same occupational group as their most recent employment.

Atkinson pointed to healthcare as an example of an industry where employers are navigating occupational mismatch. Some hospital systems are recruiting from local high schools or community colleges, he said, and directing prospective applicants to the training and certifications needed to qualify for the jobs that need filling.

“That is one of those recruitment strategies that is really high touch, because they’re actually trying to engage the talent pool before it’s an actual talent pool,” Atkinson told HR Brew.

Atkinson noted that most hospital roles require being present in an actual hospital, so recruitment strategies often involve reaching out to local educational institutions or community organizations focused on training and developing the types of talent needed right now.

He also pointed to new L&D and skills technology that recruiters can use to map “skills adjacencies” and source talent (externally, but also internally) that may have skills similarly aligned with the needs of the role.

“Sometimes our job descriptions are organizations’ worst enemies in terms of filtering out qualified talent,” he said. “Organizations have a broader remit for the types of things that they are looking for in a particular role. That means that more people can apply and also expanding it out to more people with skills adjacencies can apply as well.”

two people with mismatched puzzle pieces 

The labor market is even more complicated than you thought

New SHRM research finds “occupational mismatch” exacerbating tight labor market, even as unemployment rate rises.

The website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) went quiet this week, and the morning of Oct. 3 came and went without the September jobs report that was slated to be released.

The report was delayed for the first time since 2013 due to the shutdown that occurred on Oct. 1, after Republicans and Democrats reached an impasse over a bill to keep the government funded. This means HR professionals who typically rely on this report to make hiring decisions are flying partially blindfolded for the foreseeable future.

Employers are operating without BLS insights at a moment when many companies typically look to make decisions about their hiring strategy, said Trent Cotton, head of talent acquisition insights and analyst relations for recruitment platform iCIMS.

“October is usually when people start planning budgets, and it’s workforce planning season, and so not to have that data could be crippling,” he said. At the same time, TA professionals may not be so acutely impacted, given they tend to rely on more granular data to make hiring decisions in the short-term, sources told HR Brew.

The data HR pros typically rely on is akin to a three-legged stool, incorporating the BLS, their own internal tracking, as well as external sources, Cotton said. They might look at this data to get a sense of how their time-to-fill for certain roles compares to other employers in their sector, or what job skills or titles are trending.

While the balance of this stool is currently off-balance due to the lack of government data, Cotton said he didn’t expect this data gap to affect TA teams as much as it might affect other leaders who tend to rely on the BLS reports.

Recruiters tend to focus on microeconomic trends, whereas CEOs are more likely to pay attention to broader microeconomic trends, said Cole Napper, VP of research, innovation, and talent insights for labor market intelligence platform Lightcast.

“Recruiters know that they need real-time data, because the market shifts very quickly,” he said. Individual recruiters’ data needs when hiring for roles on a day-to-day basis are likely to look different than those of a CEO who is weighing whether to open a new location, for example, or add or cut large numbers of workers. That being said, Lightcast advocates for a “both, and” approach, recommending employers incorporate the firm’s own insights about job postings and candidate profiles with government data.

“No single data set answers every labor market question,” he added.

What other reports say about the labor market.

 HR pros seeking to figure out what went on with the labor market in September might look to sources like ADP or Indeed for answers.

These reports provide evidence that the “low hire, low fire” trend continued last month. Private-sector employment declined by 32,000 jobs in September, 

, suggesting that “US employers have been cautious with hiring,” said Nela Richardson, the firm’s chief economist.

Meanwhile, Indeed’s job postings index showed that overall job postings on the platform were down 2.5% from the previous month as of Sept. 26. “Indeed data also reflects a broad-based slowdown in hiring across sectors,” senior economist Cory Stahle said in an emailed statement to HR Brew, as only banking and finance showed an uptick in job postings year over year.

Employers appeared to hold onto workers, as the unemployment rate 

, the same level as August, according to the Chicago Fed.

Such reports paint a partial picture of the economy, but for as long as BLS reports are delayed, “it’s gonna create uncertainty,” said Andrea Derler, head of research with workplace analytics firm Visier.

Derler said she hoped this moment would lead to “renewed discussions around the importance of data and that we cannot be without it anymore, that we cannot make decisions without any data.”

HR pros operate in the dark without September jobs report 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics didn’t release a September jobs report due to the government shutdown, complicating workforce planning strategy for employers.

HR pros are missing a key source for labor market decisions absent September jobs report

The “low-hire, low-fire” job market persisted in August, as job openings remained steady and layoffs were low, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Available jobs in the US have dropped precipitously since the Covid 19-driven hiring boom that occurred in 2021 and 2022, when openings soared to 12.1 million. In recent months, though, they’ve hovered just above 7 million, remaining at 7.2 million in August, essentially flat from the month prior.

Meanwhile, hiring dipped slightly, as employers hired 5.1 million workers, down from 5.2 million in July. This slowdown in hiring could indicate that recruiters and TA professionals are struggling to find job candidates with the right skillsets, labor market experts told HR Brew.

The rate at which employers hired workers dropped to 3.2% in August, the lowest level since June 2024.

“That definitely means that employers are being a lot more cautious,” said Raj Namboothiry, SVP at Manpower US. “They’re posting roles, but they’re not hiring.”

One potential reason for the hiring slowdown could be “a skills mismatch that continues in the labor market,” he added. Sectors like manufacturing, IT, and technology are seeing desired skillsets advance faster than available talent due to advancements in areas like AI and automation. In other words, “there’s new jobs being defined, new skills being identified…and employers are not able to find talent at the same pace,” Namboothiry said.

The mismatch Namboothiry described could be factoring into job-seeker behavior as well, as more employees are staying put in their current jobs. The rate at which workers quit their jobs declined from 2% to 1.9% in August, signaling “low confidence in what the market’s looking for and how they view their skillsets,” he said.

While the current 1:1 ratio of available jobs to unemployed workers seems “wonderfully balanced” at first glance, “you go below the surface and you start to see the disruption in particular that’s coming out of the government shifts in hiring patterns, and the displacement via AI,” said Adam Stafford, CEO of recruitment marketing platform Recruitics. Unemployed talent trying to transition 

 to the private sector, for example, or find new work in a field that’s being disrupted by AI, “may not have the skills or experience that are demanded” by current job openings.

Skills shortages represent both a challenge and an opportunity for HR leaders. In light of the current labor market, recruitment and TA professionals “need to start thinking about…upskilling talent internally, or working with partners to build career pathways for the skills of the future,” Namboothiry said.

ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud echoed this point in an emailed statement regarding the August data. As skills shift and more members of the Baby Boomer workforce retire, businesses can “invest in upskilling their existing workforce and strategically enhancing employee satisfaction to retain their current talent and avoid further exacerbating the growing skills gap,” she said.

Now Hiring sign with piece of tape over "now" with "not" written on it.

Available jobs held steady in August while hiring slowed

 Employers may be struggling to find the right skills for certain roles, particularly in sectors experiencing AI-related disruption. 

Hiring slowed in August even as open jobs remained steady 

A group of 40 economists are calling on the federal government to bolster its efforts to collect employment data related to artificial intelligence.

The move comes amid a leadership shake up at the country’s leading agency tasked with overseeing how the federal government collects and analyzes data related to the economy. President Trump 

 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfar, following a number of disappointing jobs reports, sparking concerns that the moves could further erode trust in the agency.

 to Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer was drafted in partnership with the Americans for Responsible Innovation, a nonprofit advocacy organization, focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.

“We urge the Department of Labor to make collecting and providing high-quality and timely data for monitoring AI’s impact on labor markets a top priority,” the letter’s subject reads.

The letter’s release also comes as two signatories—economists studying AI’s impact on private employment—

, among them that early-career workers are the most exposed to AI; although employment continues to grow “robustly” overall, younger workers face particularly stagnant conditions, and increased AI uses does not always correlate with job loss.

“We’re in a period, I think, of increasing turbulence in the economy due to AI and other things,” said one of the study’s authors, Erik Brynjolfsson, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. “It could easily become even more chaotic in the coming months and years, so we absolutely need to get better data. We don’t want to be flying blind into this.”

The economists called on the agency to ramp up data collection and analysis of data that is “granular and timely” in order to react to the new challenges and changes that may arise as widespread AI adoption in the workplace grows.

The letter calls on the department to invest in and improve upon the datasets available for researchers studying economic phenomena related to AI adoption, so that they offer more insight into how the technology may affect the jobs market, and how policymakers can prepare for those changes.

“It’s one of the most cost effective investments the government can make. It’s a public good that we should absolutely be investing in,” Brynjolfsson said. “That’s why I signed that letter.”

Private datasets are “not fully representative,” he added.

The aforementioned paper Brynjolfsson coauthored on early AI impacts leverages only the private employment data from ADP, the largest payroll software provider in the country.

“Ultimately, government data and private data,” he added. “I see them as complements more than substitutes.”

Close up of a briefcase with AI abstract connected lines displayed over the key lock.

Economists call for more DOL data on AI’s impact on the jobs market 

In an open letter to the labor secretary, economists warn that more data is needed to understand the technology’s impact on the workforce.

An illustration of a photo of HR Brew reporter Paige McGlauflin.

Paige McGlauflin

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ August 

 was, well, not good. Employers made few job gains, while the unemployment rate rose to its highest level in years. As the labor market slowed further this summer, experts have again sounded the alarm about an economic downturn. Let’s take a closer look.

Employers added just 22,000 jobs in August, well below 

 of 75,000. Meanwhile, June job gains were revised down by 13,000, and July job gains were revised up to 79,000. The unemployment rate increased to 4.3%, the highest seen since October 2021.

 that a recession may be imminent, while Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody’s, 

 that the labor market is already in one, and has been since June, Business Insider reported. While one month of data is not enough evidence of a recession, the unemployment rate rising while job gains are slowing is a concerning early sign, said Glassdoor’s chief economist, Daniel Zhao, noting if this trend continues in the coming months, it could trigger the Sahm rule (a recession indicator).

“A more substantial downturn is definitely something that businesses have to plan for,” Zhao said. “It’s not a guarantee, but especially with the increasing unemployment rate there are more signs that the job market is weakening in an unhealthy manner.”

Amy Glaser, SVP of business operations at staffing firm Adecco, cautioned employers against letting the topline August numbers drive their talent decision-making.

“We’ll have to wait and see what comes out in September. At this point, I’m still optimistic the labor market is going to remain resilient and strong,” she said. “We’ve called 2025 the year of durability in terms of the labor market. Unemployment changed very minimally, so there’s still opportunity out there for millions of Americans on a daily basis.”

Healthcare added around 31,000 jobs in August, the largest increase of any industry but also below the average monthly gains of 42,000 that the sector reported over the last year. The healthcare industry has made up the bulk of the labor market’s job gains in recent years, and now a moderation in healthcare hiring may not adequately make up for cooling in other sectors.

“There’s no guarantee that healthcare will continue to add jobs at the pace that we’ve seen in recent years. So even if healthcare is continuing to add jobs in the short to medium term, it might not be enough to outweigh the declines in jobs that we’re seeing across all other industries,” Zhao said.

Healthcare was followed by social assistance, which added more than 16,000 jobs, and accommodation and food services, which added over 13,000 jobs. Additionally, retail trade added 10,000 jobs, mostly driven by general merchandising.

Meanwhile, professional and business services reported a decline, with 17,000 fewer jobs added—the steepest of any industry. That sector was followed by durable goods manufacturing and the federal government, which added 19,000 and 15,000 fewer jobs, respectively.

Unfortunately for employers, it’s uncertain how the economy will play out over the next few months. The Federal Reserve is expected to meet and cut interest rates later this month. Lower interest rates could free up cash for businesses and allow them to pursue business investments that lead to hiring.

“Overall, I would say that rate cuts will be stimulative, but it’s not a guarantee that it will outweigh some of these other factors that aren’t related to rates at all,” Zhao said.

The other primary factor at play is tariffs. Despite being locked up in court challenges, many of President Donald Trump’s 

 went into effect in August, charging a 10% to 50% tax on imported goods, depending on the origin country. The impact of tariffs on consumers and businesses isn’t yet known, though sectors like retail and leisure and hospitality—both of which reported employment gains in August—will likely be negatively affected, according to Zhao.

In light of this uncertainty, Glaser said employers are focused on making multiple contingency plans.

“I think if Covid taught us anything as employers, it taught us the ability to be agile and to move quickly,” she said. “So employers are trying to get ahead of it, as we speak today.”

Weak August jobs data is bad news for employers

“A more substantial downturn is definitely something that businesses have to plan for,” an economist tells HR Brew.

Abysmal August jobs report puts recession fears back on employers’ radar

The dog days of summer are coming to an end, and the labor market is already experiencing a frost.

Employers reported a decline in job openings in July, while all other turnover including hiring and separations stagnated from June, according to Wednesday’s 

job openings and labor turnover survey (JOLTS) data

 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Let’s take a closer look.

Employers reported 7.2 million job openings in July, down from 7.4 million in June. Meanwhile, organizations made 5.3 million hires, and saw 3.2 million quits and 1.8 million layoffs and discharges in July, all unchanged from June.

“Employer cautiousness continues,” Rajesh Namboothiry, SVP at Manpower US, told HR Brew. “They’re not hiring, but they’re not firing either.”

Additionally, the ratio of job openings per unemployed person edged up slightly to 1 in July, which Namboothiry said is a bad sign for job seekers. “It is getting tough for job seekers,” he said, adding, “We know that from data, we know that from talking to our talent, that it is getting tougher for them to find jobs. There are less jobs and more job seekers.”

Healthcare and social assistance reported the steepest drop in job openings (a trend supported by 

), declining by 181,000 between June and July, followed by retail trade and arts, entertainment, and recreation, which fell by 110,000 and 62,000, respectively.

In professional and business services, quits increased by 197,000, the largest spike of any industry, while layoffs fell by 130,000. Meanwhile, quits declined the most in construction (down by 80,000), transportation, warehousing, and utilities, and accommodation and food services (both down by 49,000).

Manufacturing was a bright spot in Wednesday’s data, reporting a 41,000 spike in job openings and an increase of 21,000 hires between June and July.

“We have seen that over the last couple of months manufacturing activities have slightly picked up locally,” Namboothiry said. “So that is an indication that we may see some pockets of manufacturing jobs to be added, skilled trade jobs added, which is a positive.”

HR and TA leaders should expect sluggish turnover to continue in the coming months. While 

 from the Federal Reserve later this month could stimulate some business activity and boost hiring, other challenges—including 

—will likely force businesses to continue their trepidatious approach.

As economic uncertainty festers, businesses will likely continue pursuing short-term talent strategies. Namboothiry said he hasn’t had long-term workforce planning conversations with clients for several months now.

“There was a time when they were looking a year ahead. Now it’s not even a quarter ahead,” Namboothiry said.

A Now Hiring sign with Now crossed out and replaced with Not