DEI has faced immense pressure since the 2024 election cycle, largely from the second iteration of the Trump administration. Executive orders and directives from the Departments of Labor and Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) aimed to deter employers from pursuing diversity practices, HR Brew previously reported.

The political fear campaign appears to have at least partially worked: Roughly 63 Fortune 100 companies have rebranded or eliminated the DEI messaging that appeared on their websites since the summer of 2024, an HR Brew analysis found. Of those companies, 54 made their changes following the 2024 presidential election.

“The Trump administration did a very good job of putting out a narrative of fear and of misinformation that became very hard to combat, quite frankly, as practitioners,” Evelyn Carter, a DEI expert and author of the forthcoming book, Was That Racist? In some cases, she said, businesses seem to have continued the work internally, without publicizing it externally.

“It [the data] implies to us that these rollbacks weren’t ideological. They’re fear-based. They’re shortcut-based,” Jarvis Sam, founder and CEO of the Rainbow Disruption, a DEI consultancy, told HR Brew. “What I listen for is, show me the system that makes merit real, and a lot of what they underpin it with is some of the exact same approaches that are the foundation of how we define and talk about DEI.”

For more on this trend, and what might be next for DEI, keep reading here.—KP

Want to leave 2025 in the past? Too bad, we’re looking at November labor turnover data today.

The labor market in November churned about as smoothly as bread dough that’s been kneaded for too long—that is to say, not much at all. Job openings and hires declined again, while total separations remained largely unchanged, per the latest JOLTS data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For HR leaders, it’s yet another sign that they will have to get creative with their talent strategies in 2026 amid a changing labor market.

For more on the data, and what it means for talent strategy, keep reading here.—PM

A new year means new wages for millions of workers across the country.

As of Jan. 1, 2026, the minimum wage rate increased in 19 states, as well as 47 different cities and counties. The state-level minimum wage increases are expected to affect earnings for more than 8.3 million workers, according to an estimate from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Hawaiians saw the biggest hourly minimum wage boost at the start of this year, as the rate increased by $2, from $14 to $16. Workers in Missouri and Nebraska also saw substantial increases—the hourly minimum wage rose by $1.25 and $1.50 in these states, respectively.

These wage increases come at a time when compensation and benefits are barely outpacing inflation, according to recent federal data. The amount that employers spent on wages and benefits rose 3.5% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but this uptick was the lowest level since 2021, and just slightly higher than the inflation rate.

For more on what HR needs to know about the recent minimum wage increases, keep reading here.—CV