Imagine laying off thousands of employees, only to turn around and have to hire nearly as many back…Well, Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of financial software company Intuit, announced performance-related layoffs affecting roughly 1,800 employees in a company-wide email last week—but plans to hire nearly the same number of employees, many for AI roles, Business Insider reported. Meanwhile, Tesla, just a few months after announcing layoffs affecting 10% of its staff, recently posted nearly 800 job listings, many also for AI jobs.

Intuit’s communications team responded to HR Brew’s request for comment by directing us to Goodarzi’s note to employees. Tesla did not respond to our request for comment by publication.

“There’s [an] AI talent arms race happening right now across big tech companies, and really outside of tech as well…and this sort of thing where you see organizations moving resources around is probably going to continue,” Joe Mull, keynote speaker and author of Employalty, told HR Brew.

Mull, along with Cy Wakeman, best-selling author and founder of leadership consulting firm Reality-Based Leadership, spoke with HR Brew about the challenges associated with hiring right after layoffs, and why, in this case, it might be worthwhile.

Keep reading here.—MC

In today’s hiring climate, small and medium-sized companies are changing things up to meet market demands. Rippling’s new State of Employment report explores workplace benchmarks for SMBs and how hiring strategies are shifting across industries, including tech, retail, and healthcare.

The State of Employment report analyzes year-over-year data, comparing the second quarter of 2024 to the second quarter of 2023. It breaks down personnel strategies and data from over 7,000 SMBs, including 300,000+ employees and contractors across several industries—and what all that data actually means for HR leaders.

Personnel decisions vary by industry, but here’s the TL;DR: Businesses aren’t adding to their full-time headcount. But they are turning more to contractors. See which industries are doing that most—and least.

Planning to make changes to your personnel strategy? Read up on how you compare to other SMBs in Rippling’s report.

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) noncompete ban, which is set to take effect on September 4, is facing numerous legal challenges. In two recent cases, judges offered differing views on the legality of the FTC ban.

Ban temporarily blocked in Texas. On July 3 a Texas federal judge issued a temporary partial block of the noncompete ban from taking effect for plaintiffs named in a lawsuit against the FTC. The judge wrote that the FTC rule is “arbitrary and capricious,” in part “because it is unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation.” The judge took issue with the ban for having a “one-size-fits-all approach with no end date.”

For now, that ruling is narrow, as it only applies to the five entities that sued, including Ryan LLC, a Dallas-based tax firm, as well as the US Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Association of Business. The court said it would “rule on the ultimate merits of this action” by August 30, and attorneys with law firm Fisher Phillips suggested the scope of the ruling may expand at that point.

Pennsylvania decision. A federal judge in Pennsylvania, however, rejected a similar challenge to the noncompete ban on July 23.

Keep reading here.—CV

We chat 1:1 with HR pros about their career journeys. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to share your story with us.

Pop quiz: Can teaching help you develop the skills needed to run HR at a Fortune 500 company? Answer: Absolutely.

At least, that’s Mariana Garavaglia’s experience. She spent five years teaching English to Spanish-speaking students in Garland, Texas, before leaving the profession to get her master’s degree in business administration from Dartmouth College.

While in her graduate program, Garavaglia said she learned about the relationship between employee success and business success, and this motivated her to pursue a career in HR. After graduating, she spent more than a decade in Amazon’s HR department and then became Peloton’s CPO in 2019, and her current position as DoorDash’s CPO in 2022.

She shared with HR Brew the common ground that she believes teachers and HR pros share.

Keep reading here.—MC

Motivate your multi-gen workforce. Equally valuing and elevating the potential of each generation is a key determinant of success for organizations today—and tomorrow. Flexible leadership and tailored employee experiences are crucial. Protiviti explores this timely topic in their white paper: Motivating the Multigenerational Workforce of 2030.