Employment in core white-collar sectors, defined as financial activities, information, and professional and business services, has fallen 2% since peaking in April 2023, even as employment in all other sectors has risen 3.7% over the same period, according to an Axios analysis of BLS data.
Those sectors added an average of 49,000 jobs a month in the decade before April 2023 but have lost an average of 19,000 jobs a month since then.
At 34 million workers, core white-collar employment represents about 22% of total U.S. employment of 159 million, which helps explain why a low 4.3% unemployment rate and 114,000 jobs added monthly so far this year can coexist with significant professional-sector pain.
The manufacturing collapse of the early 2000s offers a historical parallel: the overall job market recovered within five years, but manufacturing employment never did, falling 18% by 2006 and contributing to lasting economic dysfunction in affected communities.
Read more via Axios
Erika McEntarfer, a labor economist at Stanford and former BLS Commissioner, says the data on AI's labor market impact is more nuanced than the panic suggests, though she cautions the picture could change quickly.
Only about one in five American companies are currently using AI in any business function, according to Census Bureau data, which helps explain why broad labor market disruption hasn't materialized.
Unemployment has been rising faster among workers least exposed to AI than among those most exposed, and software developers have seen continued employment growth, with researchers debating whether growth has slowed rather than whether jobs are disappearing.
McEntarfer flagged what she called "AI washing" in corporate layoff announcements, recommending employers look at underlying financials and which specific roles are eliminated rather than taking stated rationales at face value.
She identified the hiring process itself as among the most AI-disrupted areas, noting that AI interviewers appear to prefer AI-generated candidate responses, creating a trust problem across the entire hiring pipeline.
Read more via HRD America
Most biopharma professionals don't expect the sector's hiring slump to reverse until next year at the earliest, with cost efficiency pressure and a slowdown in company formation keeping a lid on new roles, according to a BioSpace poll and analyst interviews.
77% of respondents to a BioSpace LinkedIn poll don't expect a market rebound until 2027 or later, and 50% don't expect improvement until 2028 or beyond.
Graig Suvannavejh, managing director and senior biopharma analyst at Mizuho Securities, said a rebound before 2027 is unlikely, citing the industry's increasing focus on operating as leanly as possible.
The velocity of company creation has slowed dramatically since the 2019 to 2022 period, when early-stage companies could attract funding without a drug candidate in testing.
Two recruiting specialists told BioSpace they have seen hiring pick up in 2026, including increased demand for clinical operations personnel, but one noted that some roles have gone on hold earlier in the year than expected.
Read more via BioSpace
Analyst firm Forrester projects AI will cut the customer service workforce in half within four years, with the steepest losses concentrated in high-volume, lower-complexity contact centers.
Forrester modeled a contact center with 1,000 representatives and projected it could operate with 40 within four years as AI handles routine inquiries.
Gartner takes a more cautious view, predicting that among organizations planning severe headcount reductions due to AI, half will drop those plans by 2027.
Most contact centers are not actively laying off workers; high natural turnover rates, which average around 30% industry-wide and reach 100% annually at some large operators, are expected to drive workforce reduction through attrition rather than cuts.
Forrester anticipates contact centers will add new roles including relationship managers and subject matter experts as lower-complexity work is automated.
There are humans today doing jobs that don't require the level of intelligence that a human has. That work is going to go away."
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The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell to 95.3 in May, remaining below its 52-year average of 98.0, as hiring plans and job openings dropped to their lowest levels since May 2020.
Unfilled job openings fell 5 points from April to 29%, the lowest reading since May 2020, and the share of owners planning to create new jobs dropped 4 points to a net 9%, also the lowest since May 2020.
Labor costs ranked as the single most important problem for 14% of small business owners, up 5 points from April and the highest reading in the survey's history.
The share of owners planning to raise prices rose to a net 36%, the highest reading since March 2023. Capital spending plans fell to 16%, the lowest level since March 2009.
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A federal judge in Boston ruled Monday that the Trump administration's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions is an unlawful tax, vacating the policy and siding with 20 state attorneys general who had challenged it.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that the fee constitutes a tax and that Congress had not delegated the authority to impose it to the executive branch.
The fee had dramatically increased the cost of new H-1B petitions, which typically ran between $2,000 and $5,000 before the policy; only 85 payments of the $100,000 fee were recorded through mid-February.
The ruling conflicts with a December decision by a different federal judge who upheld the fee in a separate challenge brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Association of American Universities, setting up potential divergent outcomes across appellate circuits.
The White House said it is confident the ruling will be reversed on appeal.
Read more via AP, HR Dive
The EEOC replaced its Strategic Enforcement Plan with a new National Enforcement Plan signed June 4, shifting the agency's enforcement philosophy away from a social justice framework and toward explicit alignment with White House policy directives. The analysis below draws on a breakdown by law firm Seyfarth Shaw.
The new plan abandons disparate impact theory, committing the agency to prioritize intentional discrimination claims and to eliminate disparate impact liability from investigations "to the maximum degree possible."
Specific DEI practices now identified as enforcement targets include diverse slate policies, diversity statements required of candidates, executive compensation tied to demographic goals, and sharing employee race or sex data with managers or the public.
The plan eliminates district-level enforcement priorities, replacing them with a single national playbook and the ability to redeploy staff and cases across offices. Equal pay, AI in hiring, and access to arbitration, all previously named enforcement priorities, do not appear in the new plan.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas designated four personal enforcement priorities: DEI-related race and sex discrimination, protecting American workers from what she termed anti-American national origin discrimination, defending single-sex spaces at work, and protecting religious liberty.
Read more via Lexology
The Department of Labor sent an email last week urging employees to file whistleblower complaints against colleagues engaged in DEI-related practices, with a three-year statute of limitations that would cover conduct predating the Trump administration.
The email, titled "Reporting DEI-Related Discrimination, Retaliation, and Related Whistleblower Disclosures," was not signed by any member of DOL leadership and came from a generic DOL guidance account.
Reportable conduct listed in the email included restricting networking events to specific racial or sex groups, awarding recognition based in part on diversity goals, and "any preference or disparate treatment justified by 'diversity' or 'equity.'"
Two DOL employees who spoke to WIRED anonymously said the email felt like a "reminder to narc on your coworkers" and warned it could be used to punish staff for DEI activities that were part of their official performance standards under the previous administration.
Read more via WIRED
Canada: The goods-trade surplus widened to a 15-month high of C$2.72 billion in April, lifted by record exports of crude oil and vehicles to the U.S., though analysts cautioned that lingering tariff uncertainty and USMCA renegotiation could limit momentum. (The Wall Street Journal)
Germany: Factory orders dropped 3.8% in April, the first decline since January, as Iran war-driven energy costs threatened to stall a nascent industrial recovery; manufacturing activity fell to a four-month low in May while input cost inflation hit its highest level in nearly four years. (The Wall Street Journal)
United Kingdom: Permanent job placements fell at their fastest pace since July 2025 in May, extending a contraction streak to 44 consecutive months, as employers cited uncertainty from the Iran war and rising costs; temporary hiring rose at its quickest pace since April 2023 as firms sought flexibility. (Reuters)
