Last week, Meta started layoffs affecting roughly 10% of its workforce, or 8,000 employees, CNBC reported. The cuts are just the latest at the company, which laid off 21,000 workers in 2023 and more than 1,000 between January and March of this year. More are expected in the coming months. Meta had nearly 78,000 employees as of March 31. It informed them of this latest round of layoffs in late April after the news unexpectedly leaked, Business Insider reported. “Normally, we would want to nail down more details before communicating about this broadly, but since this has leaked, I want to share what I can right now. I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances,” Meta’s chief people officer, Janelle Gale, said in a memo to employees. But with any layoff strategy, workplace experts told HR Brew there are pros and cons that people leaders should be aware of. For more on what HR should consider when communicating with employees about layoffs, keep reading here.—MC | | |
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Recruiters aren’t quite in the rough spot they were five years ago, largely due to a lot of legwork to get the things moving again. Ashby’s latest report analyzed over 109 million applications and 247,000 jobs from January 2021 through March 2026. What it found is an uptick in applicants, hires placed, and total hours spent interviewing. Let’s break it down. According to the report: - Applications per hire tripled from 2021 to 2024 and remained above 300 throughout 2025.
- Hires per recruiter have recovered from 2023 lows, with the average recruiter reaching about seven hires per quarter.
- Candidates who receive an interview are more likely to be the right fit.
- Time to first fill has settled at eight weeks for business roles and 10 weeks for technical roles.
For all the insights, read the full report. |
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SAP announced its biggest move on AI and the future of enterprise software at last week’s Sapphire conference and customer event in Orlando, FL. AI agents will drive the future of HR tech, and employees, as well as other enterprise users, will navigate fewer systems by querying the system via natural language to leverage interconnected agentic processes to get work done. The Orlando event featured SAP’s new “autonomous enterprise” strategy, a system built around agents capable of orchestrating and executing end-to-end business processes across HR and other functions in SAP’s wheelhouse, such as finance and supply chain. The autonomous enterprise is “execution with more automation, more efficiency powered by AI,” according to Dan Beck, GM and chief product officer of SAP SuccessFactors. SAP is “really embracing all things AI and really redefining much of how enterprises run,” he told HR Brew. “From a system of record to a system of execution.” For more on the enterprise software giant’s AI-powered shift, keep reading here.—AD | | |
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Today’s top HR reads. Stat: An analysis of 4 million job postings found AI systems discriminated against 26% of Black candidates and 15% of Asian candidates. This means some 40,000 job candidates missed out on advancing to the next stage due to AI-related discrimination. (Stanford) Quote: “If we aren’t thoughtful about this, we risk turning work into something that feels more isolated and atomized…We’ll just be combining our inputs in a way that feels more like an assembly line than a vibrant workplace.”—Jessica Reif, who’s set to join Wharton’s faculty as a management professor, on Americans’ newfound penchant for working alone (Business Insider) Read: Back-office jobs such as customer service and payroll processing once served as the backbone of Phoenix’s economy. In the AI age, they’re fading away. (the Wall Street Journal) For founders, investors, and startup obsessives: Founder Brew covers the decisions and lessons that define builders.
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The Form I-9 used to feel like paperwork. Now it’s becoming a financial risk conversation. Join us on June 4 to unpack ICE’s updated guidance, real-world error scenarios, and why “we’ll fix it later” is suddenly a much riskier personality trait. |
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More focus, less fluff. CollabWORK filters out the noise and delivers jobs that actually match what HR Brew readers are looking for. Click here to see the full board of curated roles. |
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