If life’s a beach, then recruiters are currently caught in a riptide. Despite the recent hiring slowdown creating more competition in the job market, recruiters have confoundingly discovered that separating the wheat from the chaff has only gotten more difficult.

Nearly three-fourths (72%) of global companies are experiencing a scarcity of qualified talent, according to ManpowerGroup’s 2026 Global Talent Shortage report. That’s only slightly down from the 74% that said the same in 2025.

The data suggests that challenge is acutely felt by recruiters. Two-thirds of recruiters reported getting more applicants per role last year, according to an Employ survey of talent acquisition (TA) pros. Despite the uptick in candidate volume, nearly half (46%) of respondents reported a lack of quality candidates, and listed improving the quantity and quality of candidates, and hiring speed as their top three priorities.

To help reduce strain, TA pros are revamping their recruitment tech stacks, with a focus on using AI to better identify top candidates in the pre-screening process, or when sourcing candidates, reviewing résumés, or conducting initial screening calls.

For more on how AI can support the pre-screening process, and what TA pros should consider about compliance, keep reading here.—PM

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Apr. 10 that it had reached a first-of-its-kind settlement with IBM, whereby the company agreed to pay $17 million in damages over its DEI programming.

The government accused the company of violating the False Claims Act, saying IBM “knowingly maintained practices that the United States contends were discriminatory employment practices” by having “discriminated against employees and applicants for employment because of race, color, national origin, or sex.” The DOJ also accused IBM of using diversity as a bonus metric, and claimed that it afforded employees certain leadership and educational opportunities based on gender.

The DOJ launched a Civil Rights Fraud Initiative investigation into IBM over its DEI practices in May 2025. Around the same time, IBM appeared to reverse course on decades of DEI efforts, eliminating its DEI department and Diversity Council, HR Brew reported at the time. The company also ended allyship training and scrubbed decades of DEI information from its website.

“To me, it just goes to show how much this administration has federal contractors over a barrel,” David Glasgow, co-founder of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University School of Law, told HR Brew, noting that under the False Claims Act, the government would need to prove that the DEI program had a direct influence on the government’s decision to pay the contractor.

For more on what HR needs to know about the settlement, keep reading here.—KP

You know HR people can be funny people, and we know HR people can be funny people, but has the rest of your organization gotten the memo?

Heed the advice of the funny people and get cracking on those jokes.

“If you’re your authentic self and you’ve got a sense of humor, lean into it, because more often than not, people appreciate that,” Ashley Bendell, co-founder of Funny People, a pop-up HR comedy show, said during a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast. “It’ll help you to stand out.”

Bendell and his co-founder, Peter Phelan, sat down with Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew, to talk about Funny People and the role of humor in HR.

For more from our conversation with Bendell and Phelan, keep reading here.—VV

One week from now, you could be in a room with 150+ HR leaders digging into what’s actually shaping the future of talent—or you could be watching the highlights later wishing you went. The agenda is stacked, the conversations will be real, and the energy will be unmatched. There’s still time to join…just not much of it.

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