Despite a string of headline-grabbing layoffs at major companies, workforce data tells a different story. An average of 1.75 million Americans were laid off per month in the first three months of 2026, roughly in line with the number laid off in March 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Layoffs affected about 1.2% of employed people in March, a rate that has been steady for years (outside of the pandemic).
Labor economists say the bigger problem in the labor market is weak hiring, not elevated layoffs.
In the information sector (which includes tech workers), both layoffs and hiring have increased, with the net effect roughly a wash.
Some executives are attributing layoffs to AI productivity gains even when the technology may not be the actual driver, a pattern some observers have labeled 'AI washing.'
Layoffs, broadly considered, are not a problem at all. Hiring being weak, that's the biggest problem."
There's a lot more headlines about job cuts than there are expansion plans by businesses."
Read more via Washington Post
Fewer people filed for unemployment last week — 209,000 new claims, slightly better than expected.
The number of people already on unemployment and still searching for work nudged up to 1.78 million, suggesting it's taking a little longer to get rehired.
Hiring is also slowing down. Employers added 115,000 jobs in April, well below March's 185,000. The job market is still okay, but losing some steam.
Read more via Reuters
A new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland finds that rising unemployment among certain worker groups can serve as an early warning signal for broader labor market deterioration.
Increases in the unemployment rate for Black workers predict higher overall unemployment four to seven months later, with each 1 percentage point increase associated with roughly 0.2% percentage points higher overall unemployment at peak.
Increases in the unemployment rate for workers without a high school diploma show more immediate predictive power, with the effect reaching about 0.2 percentage points two months later and remaining consistent through 10 months.
Workers aged 35 to 44, not typically flagged as a vulnerable group, showed the strongest predictive relationship of all, with increases in their unemployment rate associated with overall unemployment rising 0.3% percentage points four months later and remaining elevated through at least 12 months.
Hispanic worker and teen unemployment rates showed no statistically significant predictive power over the horizons studied.
Read more via Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
A growing number of companies are pushing back on the narrative that AI is eliminating junior roles, with some of the heaviest AI adopters among the most aggressive entry-level hirers.
Nearly three times as many executives at companies using or exploring AI said they were increasing junior-level hiring in 2026 rather than cutting back, according to a Strada Education Foundation survey of 1,500 employers; more than 40% said AI is bringing more complexity to entry-level jobs as the technology takes over rote tasks.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced plans to hire 1,000 new graduates and interns to build its AI platforms, saying "you are right they said AI would kill entry-level jobs — meanwhile these grads and interns are building it."
MetLife increased intern and new-grad hiring by nearly 30% last year. IBM tripled entry-level hiring, arguing the companies that double down on junior talent now will be the most successful in three to five years.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) report found employers plan to increase hiring by 5.6% for the class of 2026, with many of the industries planning to boost hiring among those most assumed to be vulnerable to AI automation.
The share of Strada survey respondents planning to decrease junior hires was 17%, up from 13% last year.
Read more via Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Strada
Two years of employment data suggest AI is beginning to reshape hiring patterns in a meaningful way, with occupations flagged by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as AI-exposed shrinking while overall employment grows.
A group of 18 BLS-designated AI-exposed occupations, accounting for about 10 million jobs, saw employment fall 0.2% between May 2024 and May 2025, compared to 0.8% growth in overall employment over the same period.
Excluding medical secretaries and assistants, a fast-growing category tied to healthcare sector expansion, the remaining 17 occupations fell 1.6% for the second year in a row.
Customer service representatives saw the steepest decline, falling 130,180 jobs or 4.8%; secretaries and assistants (excluding medical, legal, and executive) fell 1.8%; and wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives fell 2.3%.
Since May 2022, the largest cumulative declines among the 18 occupations are credit authorizers, checkers and clerks (down 26.2%), broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys (down 20.8%), and sales engineers (down 13.2%).
A Goldman Sachs report found that job openings in occupations highly exposed to AI substitution have dropped below pre-pandemic levels, while openings in less-exposed roles have declined more gradually.
Read more via Bloomberg
Meta began notifying employees of layoffs Wednesday as the company restructures around artificial intelligence, cutting 10% of its workforce while reassigning thousands of others to new AI teams.
Meta is laying off approximately 8,000 employees and leaving roughly 6,000 open positions unfilled, while moving 7,000 employees into four new AI-focused organizations.
A new internal team called Applied AI and Engineering, led by VP of Engineering Maher Saba, has already enlisted around 2,000 employees and will operate with a flat management structure of roughly 50 workers per manager.
More than 1,000 employees signed a petition opposing a new program to track employee data for AI training purposes.
Read more via New York Times, NBC News
A new working paper from Northwestern and American University researchers finds that AI-generated "exposure scores," widely used to predict which jobs are most at risk from AI, vary significantly depending on which model you ask.
Researchers asked ChatGPT-5, Gemini 2.5, and Claude 4.5 to rate job exposure to AI and found frequent disagreement, with ChatGPT and Gemini diverging about a quarter of the time.
Claude rated accountants as highly vulnerable to AI while Gemini assigned them a much lower ranking; advertising managers and chief executives were among other occupations where the models disagreed.
Part of the variation stems from training data: jobs where workers already use AI heavily generate more training data, which in turn shapes how models rank those professions' exposure.
The researchers recommend consulting multiple models rather than relying on any single one and suggest that surveys of how AI is actually being used across the economy may ultimately yield more reliable answers.
Read more via The Wall Street Journal
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos used a CNBC interview this week to push back on fears that AI will displace workers, predicting instead that AI-driven productivity gains will eventually lead to labor shortages and deflation. His comments land against a backdrop of growing worker anxiety, particularly among younger workers and recent graduates.
Bezos predicted that AI will make workers more productive rather than eliminate jobs, comparing it to swapping a shovel for a bulldozer.
He went further, predicting AI-driven productivity will cause some two-income households to have one partner leave the workforce voluntarily, contributing to labor shortages and deflation.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults predicted in 2024 that AI would lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years, compared to 39% of AI experts.
The unemployment rate among recent college graduates rose 1.5 percentage points between November 2022 and March 2026; for all young workers, the rate ticked up just 0.1 percentage point over the same period.
A Strada Education Foundation survey found 47% of executives said AI increased entry-level hiring at their firm last year, while 13% said it decreased hiring.
The work is gonna be done at a higher level. It's gonna be done with a bulldozer instead of a shovel, and that's gonna be a good thing."
Read more via Investopedia, Gizmodo, CNBC
A new National Bureau of Economic Research study — the first national analysis of the Trump administration's deportation operations on the labor market — finds that job losses have fallen on both immigrant and American-born workers, with no corresponding wage gains.
Across four industries heavily reliant on undocumented workers (agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and wholesale), deportations produced a 5% drop in employment for male undocumented workers and a 1.3% drop for male American-born workers without a college degree.
Construction was hit hardest: employment fell 3% for American-born men without a college degree and 7.5% for undocumented workers, with researchers estimating that for each immigration arrest, six American-born workers lost a job and four undocumented workers did.
Researchers found no evidence that employers raised wages to attract American-born replacements; instead, companies reduced production.
Housing permits were down 7.4% year-over-year in March 2026 and residential construction jobs fell 1.5% year-over-year in April 2026, according to federal data.
Construction companies view it as easier to reduce production, reduce the construction of new homes and new buildings in general, rather than try to increase wages for U.S.-born workers."
Read more via The New York Times
A new peer-reviewed study finds that intensified immigration enforcement has reduced capacity in the formal childcare sector and pushed workers toward less regulated, less stable arrangements, with ripple effects for working parents.
Increased ICE activity led to significant employment declines among immigrant women in childcare centers, with limited evidence that native-born workers are filling the gap; immigrant childcare workers are more likely than their native-born counterparts to hold advanced certifications.
Workers are shifting toward private household childcare, which operates with fewer regulations, lower wages, and less stability than center-based settings subject to licensing, staff-to-child ratios, and training requirements.
The childcare sector employs nearly one million workers, generates $7.2 billion in quarterly wages, and is roughly 20% immigrant labor; researchers describe it as having "very little slack to absorb a shock of this kind."
The study's authors note that the findings likely undercount the full impact, since the research relies on survey data from a population at elevated risk of ICE detention.
Employers face significantly higher financial exposure under new ICE guidance that eliminates a decades-old framework giving businesses a window to correct minor I-9 errors before penalties were assessed.
Since 1997, the "Virtue memo" had given employers a 10-day window to fix technical or procedural errors on I-9 forms before civil penalties applied; new ICE guidance converts most of those technical mistakes into "substantive" violations triggering immediate fines.
Fines range from $288 to $2,861 per form, meaning a business with 100 forms containing errors could face penalties exceeding $250,000; for large employers managing thousands of forms, a faulty compliance system could easily produce fines in the tens of millions.
ICE is also targeting electronic I-9 management systems, specifically focusing on whether they maintain a sufficient audit trail. A single flaw in an electronic I-9 system can implicate hundreds or thousands of records simultaneously.
Walmart was recently hit with a proposed $24 million fine over thousands of electronic I-9 recordkeeping violations related to insufficient audit trails.
Immigration attorneys advise employers to audit their I-9 forms and electronic systems now, noting that the new framework does not prevent companies from proactively correcting issues before ICE identifies them.
Read more via Bloomberg Law
An outbreak of the Ebola virus is spreading in central Africa. WHO has declared it a public health emergency of international concern. The CDC assesses the current risk to the general U.S. public as low, and there are no confirmed cases inside the United States. However, U.S. entry restrictions are already in effect and employers with internationally mobile workers need to pay attention.
What we know about the outbreak:
As of May 21, there are 575 suspected cases, 51 confirmed cases, and 148 suspected deaths, primarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 2 confirmed cases in Uganda.
The outbreak is believed to have started in early April but was not identified until May, a detection gap of roughly four weeks that allowed the virus to spread unchecked.
The Bundibugyo strain is rare and distinct from the Zaire strain responsible for most previous outbreaks. There are no approved vaccines or specific treatments, and a targeted vaccine is at least six to nine months from human trials.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick or deceased person. It is not airborne. People are not infectious until they show symptoms, which appear between two and 21 days after exposure.
Case fatality rates for previous Bundibugyo outbreaks ranged from 25% to 50%.
What has happened in the U.S.:
One American, Dr. Peter Stafford, a surgeon caring for patients in the DRC, tested positive on May 17 and is being treated at Charité University Hospital in Berlin in stable condition.
Six high-risk contacts are under observation in Germany and the Czech Republic. HHS plans to ship an experimental antibody treatment to Germany for use with the exposed Americans.
On May 20, an Air France flight from Paris bound for Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport was diverted to Montreal after a passenger from the DRC boarded in error in violation of the new entry restrictions. There was no medical emergency on board.
Current U.S. restrictions:
Effective May 18, the CDC invoked Title 42 authority to implement the following measures for at least 30 days:
Non-U.S. citizens who have been in the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan within the previous 21 days are barred from entering the United States.
U.S. citizens and permanent residents returning from those three countries must enter through Washington Dulles International Airport, where federal public health screening resources are concentrated.
All travelers arriving from affected countries are subject to enhanced screening and 21-day monitoring after arrival.
The DRC is now at State Department Level 3 (avoid nonessential travel); Ituri province is Level 4 (do not travel).
What employers should consider:
Identify any employees currently in or recently returned from the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan and review their travel histories against the 21-day window.
Non-citizen employees who have been in affected countries within the past 21 days are currently barred from entering the U.S. U.S. citizen and permanent resident employees must re-enter through Dulles and will be subject to 21-day monitoring.
Consult immigration counsel for employees whose visa status or travel plans may be disrupted, particularly those on international assignments or in active visa processing.
Review duty of care obligations for employees in affected regions. The State Department's Level 3 designation means employers keeping workers in the DRC should document the basis for those decisions and ensure access to evacuation support.
Monitor the situation closely. The restrictions are in place for 30 days but could be extended. Former CDC Director Robert Redfield has warned the outbreak could expand regionally. The FIFA World Cup begins in June, adding another layer of complexity to international travel planning.
Employees who develop symptoms (fever, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, unexplained bleeding) within 21 days of travel to affected areas should seek medical attention immediately and notify their employer and local health department.
Read more via CDC Situation Summary, CDC Title 42 Order, National Law Review, NBC News, CNN, NBC Washington, The Hill, NBC Bay Area, The Tennessean
Singapore: Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong called on the country's banks and financial firms to use AI to create higher-value jobs and train workers rather than simply cut costs, saying "if we slow AI adoption, we will weaken our competitiveness and ultimately hurt workers more, not less." The announcement came one day after Standard Chartered revealed plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs through AI-driven restructuring. Singapore ranked third among 15 global AI financial hubs in a DBS report released at the same event, behind New York and San Francisco. (The News)
South Korea: Samsung Electronics workers launched an 18-day strike after management rejected a government-mediated wage proposal, with 48,000 workers participating — representing 38% of the company's South Korean workforce. The dispute centers on bonus structure, with the union seeking to enshrine a 15% operating-profit bonus allocation in employment contracts; Samsung has countered with 10% plus a one-time supplementary payment. South Korea's Prime Minister warned of potential losses as high as 100 trillion won ($66 billion USD) if semiconductor production is disrupted, and analysts estimate a full 18-day stoppage could remove 3% to 4% of global DRAM output from the market. (Quartz/Yahoo Finance)
United Kingdom: The U.K. unemployment rate rose to 5.0% in the three months through March, up from 4.9%, as higher energy costs tied to the Iran war weigh on hiring. An early estimate of payrolled employees fell by 100,000 in April to 30.2 million, the largest single-month decline since the pandemic, though the ONS cautioned that April figures are prone to revision. Annual wage growth excluding bonuses slowed to 3.4% from 3.6% in the prior period. A survey of 500 midsize U.K. companies found 30% were considering hiring freezes or staff reductions due to soaring fuel and energy costs. (The Wall Street Journal)
