As employers consider whether to add GLP-1 drugs for weight loss to their health plans, one central question is whether these medications can help reduce long-term costs.

The hope is that when employees lose weight with the help of these drugs, they’ll experience fewer complications from chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, resulting in downstream cost savings for employers covering their health plans.

A recent analysis from Aon provides some promising data points to support this hypothesis. While medical costs went up for GLP-1 users during the first year they were on them, those costs grew more slowly than they did for non-users in the years after patients started on the medication.

For more on the impact on medical costs and conditions, keep reading here.—CV

Would news of another layoff announcement make you want to throw in the towel? Bear with us—at least until the end of this article…

Travel company Expedia announced layoffs affecting 162 employees earlier this week while simultaneously boasting about new job openings, the Seattle Times reported. Expedia is not alone in making such an announcement: Financial software company Intuit followed a similar playbook when, after laying off 1,800 employees in 2024, it shared plans to hire for thousands of new AI roles, HR Brew previously reported.

What’s going on? Some companies have been redirecting funds from talent to tech in response to investor demands and competitor pressures to double down on AI, Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor, previously told HR Brew. “They might be incentivized right now to say that [layoffs are] because of AI, because they know that other companies are signaling this, and they know that investors are wondering whether they’re implementing AI at a time when all their competitors are,” Zhao said in November 2025.

How does this strategy impact employees? When companies try to hire beneath the shadow of a mass layoff, it can spook candidates, who may feel uneasy about working for an organization that just made cuts, Joe Mull, an employee commitment expert, previously told HR Brew.

For more on the dos and don’ts of reorganizing your workforce, keep reading here.—MC

The middlemen that work between health plans, drug manufacturers, and pharmacies to negotiate prices are being pressed to become more transparent in a new rule issued by the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration.

The proposed rule, issued on Jan. 29, would require pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to disclose information about rebates and other forms of compensation they receive from the pharmaceutical industry.

Requiring PBMs to be more transparent “will allow employers to see the full extent of the fees charged by pharmacy benefit managers, enabling them to negotiate a better deal for themselves and American workers,” Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said in a statement.

For more on what the rule would require, keep reading here.—CV

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.

• Head of Talent Acquisition at Invesco, Ltd.
• Lead HR Compliance and Operations Specialist at Ameritas
• Senior Human Resources Generalist at WuXi AppTec
• Sr. HRIS Analyst at ACCO Brands
• Chief Human Resources Officer at Oregon State University