From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Susanna Vogel

hr-brew.com

Illustration of empty cubicle with chair and lamp on the ground 

Companies are laying off between 5% and 7% of their workers

Dan Kaplan, senior client partner at Korn Ferry, told HR Brew that employers are taking a ‘surgical’ approach to RIF.

It’s not your imagination—a lot of companies are laying off between 5% and 7% of their workers

Adam DeRose

jerry seinfeld in red restaurant booth looking at a check and being surprised by th 

Employees want salary increases, but if your company doesn’t have the coffers to fund them, HR has to get creative.

Wage growth still isn’t enough to fight persistent inflation

Aman Kidwai

Rope being pulled in two different directions

As uncertainty becomes the norm, HR leaders should look to build a more sustainable talent strategy with better L&D and a long-term vision.

The future of work will not be without conflict, report suggests

A one dollar bill torn in half with the word Inflation on it

Economy

Mikaela Cohen

A new buzzword has hit the collective consciousness.

“Quiet cracking” describes the feeling of increased disengagement and unhappiness among employees who, amid a weakened labor market, feel stuck at work, Business Insider 

. More than half of employees feel unhappy at work either frequently (20%) or occasionally (34%), 

 from learning management system company TalentLMS found.

While employee dissatisfaction isn’t new, economic turmoil, AI uncertainty, and return-to-office mandates have pushed the workforce into this new era, according to Rishad Tobaccowala, futurist, business leader, and author of 

“Right now, [employees] are basically saying, ‘This sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it,’ so that’s why you have this quiet cracking going on,” Tobaccowala told HR Brew.

Employees are in “a diametrically opposite position” from where they were during the Great Resignation, Tobaccowala said. They went from commuting to the office five days a week pre-Covid, to having flexibility and autonomy during the pandemic, to now being expected to return to the 2019 workplace, and it’s giving them whiplash, he added.

“Three years ago, we were re-imagining work…We were thinking about how we fit work into life,” Tobaccowala said. “Two years later, we find ourselves in this ‘incredible’ world where it’s gone back to, ‘You will come back to work, whether you like it. If you don’t, we will kick you out of your job.’”

Employees are also experiencing whiplash when it comes to their mobility. Many companies went on hiring sprees around 2021, only to revert to layoffs by 2023, he said.

“In every way, the control has gone back to the company…We have much less, far less flexibility, because you have to deal with high prices, high real estate costs, high food costs,” he said. “In 2021, you thought there was a new world of work, and, in 2025, it’s worse than 2019.”

 HR professionals, Tobaccowala said, should remember the pendulum will eventually swing back in the favor of employees.

“[Employees] are basically saying we are locked, because we don’t like what’s happening, but we need to buy some time. We have to figure out how to save some money. We need to figure out how to build our networks. We need to figure out how to leverage technology,” he said. “We need to figure out how we show up, and work, and do things on the side, and then when we’re ready, we’re ready to go.”

In anticipation, Tobaccowala recommended people leaders focus on offering flexibility and personalization at work.

“While in-person interaction is important, you don’t need to basically have it three days a week. You can get away with three days a month, or even 10 days a quarter,” he said. “Younger people may need to be more at work for training or to be with each other. Middle-aged people with parents to look after and kids to look after have to move far away for better schools and affordable housing…You talk about being agile and flexible, but you don’t do that with your talent?”

Employees are disengaged and biding their time until they can quit

…as evident by the latest (alarming) workplace trend, “quiet cracking.”

An illustration of a photo of HR Brew reporter Paige McGlauflin.

Paige McGlauflin

While we may be in the middle of summer, the labor market is experiencing a cold front.

Employers added fewer jobs than expected in July, according to the 

 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, a significant downward revision to the May and June data suggested actual job gains were much lower than the robust numbers originally reported.

July’s weak numbers and the revisions for May and June 

 Erika McEntarfer, claiming via his social media platform that the numbers were “manipulated for political purposes.”

The newest employment data suggests that employers, faced with a myriad of economic challenges—including uncertainty over President Trump’s tariff threats, the administration’s immigration crackdown 

, and high interest rates—are opting to hunker down instead of investing in growing their businesses and expanding their workforce.

“There’s generally this cautiousness,” Rajesh Namboothiry, SVP at Manpower US, told HR Brew. “They’re just watching how this will play out over the next six months.”

Employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, falling short of the Dow Jones’ estimate of 100,000. The BLS also reported steeper than usual revisions for May and June. Employers added just 19,000 jobs in May, and 14,000 in June, around 258,000 less than originally reported.

“With downward revisions anticipated in September’s benchmark revision, a major reassessment of the labor market’s health is likely. However, it has been evident throughout the year that the labor market lacks momentum,” Kory Kantenga, head of economics for the Americas at LinkedIn, 

The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2% in July, but continued to hover between the range of 4% and 4.2% from May 2024. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings for employees rose by 12 cents to $36.44, a 0.3% increase.

Healthcare added more than 55,000 jobs, beating its own 12-month average monthly gains of 42,000, with growth largely driven by ambulatory healthcare services and hospitals. Meanwhile, social assistance saw the second-highest job gains, adding 18,000 in July, with the bulk of hiring in individual and family services.

Healthcare and social assistance were among the few sectors with strong job growth, said Namboothiry. “Every other sector is actually pulling back. So this is an indication of employers saying we’re going to just wait and watch. We’re not going to hire at this point.”

Employment in the federal government declined by 12,000 jobs in July, falling 84,000 since its peak in January. Professional and business services saw 14,000 fewer jobs added, the largest drop of any sector, driven by losses in administrative and support services, while manufacturing and nondurable goods both reported job losses of 11,000.

Right now, many employers are focusing on maintaining their businesses instead of growing, and holding back on hiring except for essential roles, Namboothiry said. For companies, this is a prime opportunity to invest in training their workforce to help them meet the challenges that arrive in the months ahead.

“You don’t have to future proof your workforce today. You don’t have to build the workforce of the future three years from now, today. But you’ve gotta maintain, and you’ve gotta continue to upskill your talent,” he said.

A businessman stands in front of and looks at a giant stack of dominoes that are about to collapse on top of him.

Weak job gains in July highlight employers’ economic anxiety

“This is an indication of employers saying we’re going to just wait and watch, we’re not going to hire at this point.”

July’s weak job gains and revisions spotlights employers’ economic anxiety-driven hiring pullback

The labor market is like those slimy pests that love eating the tomato plants growing in your garden: sluggish.

 that existing economic uncertainty and new turmoil driven by President Trump’s ongoing tariff threats could send the labor market into a tailspin. While that hasn’t occurred, the latest

 (JOLTS) data for June from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the labor market is continuing its slow but steady cooldown.

In some ways, it’s a blessing and a curse: While the job market hasn’t gone off the deep end, its continual stagnation is also creating its own problems. For example, as fewer opportunities open up externally, employees will be less likely to quit, stalling internal mobility opportunities.

“The story is not one of a job market that is collapsing. Instead, we see much like we’ve seen in the last few months, that the job market is cooling gradually,” said Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor’s lead economist. “But we are still seeing the same pattern in the JOLTS data that has helped explain why workers feel so sour about the current job market.”

Employers had 7.4 million job openings posted at the end of June, a decline of 275,000 from the previous month. Accommodation and food services saw the biggest drop in openings, declining by 308,000 to 754,000 in June. That was followed by healthcare and social assistance (declining 244,000) and finance and insurance (down 142,000).

Meanwhile, retail trade increased by 190,000 to 656,000 job openings, the highest monthly increase for the June data, followed by professional and business services increasing by 156,000, and information by 67,000.

Meanwhile, organizations made 261,000 fewer hires month over month, recording just 5.2 million hires in June. Professional and business services recorded the steepest monthly drop in hires between May and June, reporting 936,000 total hires, a decline of 133,000 month over month. That was followed by accommodation and food services (declining 106,000), and arts, entertainment, and recreation (falling 42,000).

The number of employees quitting declined by 128,000 to 3.1 million, while layoffs and discharges remained relatively unchanged at 1.6 million in June. With total separations, professional and business services declined by 56,000 to a total of 944,000 for the month. Meanwhile, retail trade recorded the highest spike in separations, increasing by 31,000 to 612,000 in June—of that total, 440,000 were employees quitting.

As speculation over whether AI is replacing white-collar jobs mounts, including in professional services and finance, 

 that the technology could be a factor in job turnover plummeting for these sectors.

 prompting cost-cutting measures, including offshoring jobs and layoffs, are what’s really driving a slowdown in these fields. While some jobs, such as administrative services, might be more susceptible to employers wanting to replace workers with AI, this interest is still being driven primarily by cost savings, Zhao said.

“I think it’s hard to see evidence that AI is specifically driving the slow down in jobs growth that we’re seeing. Instead, I suspect it’s a little bit reversed where, right now, jobs growth in general is slow, and that’s being driven by macroeconomic factors rather than AI,” Zhao added.

As economic uncertainty persists, employers will have to be prepared for the labor market to shift in any direction. That’ll mean continuing to plan for a myriad of scenarios, according to Zhao.

“Given how much uncertainty there is right now, it would be irresponsible to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that there is only one path forward.”

HR leaders will want to keep an eye on their workers as well. With fewer opportunities opening up internally and externally, workers are more and more susceptible to resentment and disengagement, Zhao claims.

“I think it’s important for HR leaders to recognize that employee disengagement is likely to be a significant problem right now, and might even be worse than in other job market contexts,” Zhao said, “because so many workers are prioritizing job security and would rather sit in place in a job where they are disengaged and unhappy rather than test the waters on the open market.”

a graphic of a cartoon man walking on a stock market chart

Why June’s sluggish labor turnover data spells trouble for employers

Employee resentment could climb as high as these heat wave temps.

June’s sluggish labor turnover data could spell trouble for employers

Right now, some HR leaders can’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to their talent acquisition strategy.

Net employment expectations fell for the third quarter of 2025 as ongoing economic uncertainty continues to 

 of 6,000 US employers from staffing firm ManpowerGroup found. While it’s understandably difficult to strategize with ever-changing global trade policies, getting caught up in the turmoil also comes with its own set of ramifications, one expert told HR Brew.

US organizations’ net employment outlook for the third quarter, or July through September—calculated by subtracting plans for layoffs from hiring expectations—fell to 30%, down from 34% in the prior quarter, according to ManpowerGroup’s survey.

More specifically, 44% of employers expect to increase recruitment, while another 39% plan to maintain their current staffing levels, 14% expect to decrease their ranks, and 3% are unsure.

“Employers continue to just be cautious,” Rajesh Namboothiry, SVP at Manpower US, told HR Brew. “They’re hiring for key roles. They’re pausing on roles that are not of significant strategic importance because that’s a reflection of their overall demand cycle as well.”

Of the industries ManpowerGroup surveyed, information technology, financials and real estate, and industrials and materials were most likely to hire, while energy and utilities, and communication services were among those with the lowest outlooks. Large companies with 250–5,000 workers also had the strongest hiring intentions (35% or more), while small employers with 10 or less staffers reported the weakest (less than 29%).

Economic uncertainty, fueled by the Trump administration’s ongoing and ever-changing tariff threats, continued to impact employers’ outlooks. Of organizations expecting to decrease their workforce in the next quarter, 44% said economic challenges were the reason why. And 58% of employers overall cited global trade uncertainty as creating “moderate” to “a lot of” impact on their hiring decisions.

The IT sector reported the highest volatility from global trade uncertainty at 69%, followed by financials and real estate (62%) and communication services (58%).

Employers are “plagued by the economic challenges,” Namboothiry said, and keep getting caught up thinking about talent strategy in the short-term.

“They’re sitting tight and saying, ‘Okay, one more month. Let’s see how it goes, and then we’ll start hiring.’ But very soon, you’ll start to get into the 2026 planning cycle, the next three years’ cycle,” he noted. HR leaders instead need to focus on the next two-to-three-years ahead, the market shifts that might happen during that time, and what’s required to get ahead of them now. “Look at the longer term horizon. Don’t be tactical and transactional for what you need today or next month,” Namboothiry said.

Some longer-term shifts are on HR leaders’ minds. For example, 55% of companies say that growing numbers of retiring workers exiting the workforce is affecting their HR strategy. If employers continue to focus solely on the short-term, they’ll find themselves in a lot more trouble down the road, according to ManpowerGroup.

“You see this exit in the workforce, you see some stagnation in the economy, and then you see employers holding off on hiring. That’s a perfect storm…that’s going to continue to plague the market overall,” Namboothiry said. “Something’s got to give here, and I think part of that is employers have to start planning for the future, and think about all these demographic shifts happening in their workspace.”

Economic uncertainty clouds companies’ employment outlook

Getting caught up in the turmoil comes with its own ramifications, one expert tells HR Brew.

Employment outlook for Q3 dips as employers face economic uncertainty

We’re approaching the hottest months of the year, yet employers’ hiring plans are experiencing a deep freeze.

Late last year, an HR Brew survey found that HR pros planned to 

 in the early months of 2025 compared to 2024. Now, based on a new survey of 336 HR Brew readers, those plans remain unchanged for the rest of the year, largely due to economic headwinds prompting continued uncertainty.

Around 50% of respondents to HR Brew’s survey say they plan to hire about the same amount of people in the second half of 2025 as they did in the first half. Another 26% will hire fewer workers, while just 21% plan to hire more (4% were unsure).

Pie chart depicting how hiring outlook for the second half of 2025 compares with hiring for the first half of the same year.

When comparing hiring plans year over year, the hiring cooldown becomes more notable:

Bar chart depicting comparing hiring from the second half of 2024 and hiring plans for the second half of 2025.

When asked what’s driving changes in hiring plans for this period, employers planning to hire fewer workers primarily pointed to economic uncertainty (64%), followed by budget changes (56%), industry slowdown (35%), changes in organizational priorities (34%), and tariff policy (27%).

Smaller businesses, with less than 100 employees, have a notably less optimistic hiring outlook compared to larger employers. Smaller employers, for instance, reported an 8% increase in planning to make no hires between the second half of 2024 and the same period in 2025. Meanwhile, enterprise employers with 1,000 or more employees plan to make at least one hire in this period, mirroring the second half of 2024. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of the latter plan to hire 100 or more workers through the rest of the year.

Healthcare and health services, which has 

 employment in other sectors, is the industry surveyed expecting the largest uptick in hiring for later this year, with 30% saying they plan to hire more workers. Around 57% of respondents in this sector said their hiring plans remain unchanged from the first part of the year, and just 13% said they plan to hire less.

Meanwhile, respondents in government and nonprofits were the least likely of those surveyed to hire more workers in the second half of 2025. Around 34% of respondents in this sector said they plan to hire fewer people in the latter half of this year, while 56% said their hiring would stay the same, and only 6% plan to increase hiring.

Federal government employment took a hit in early 2025 as the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency task force cut 

 first implemented in January to mid-July. Nonprofits, meanwhile, have suffered from 

 as well as a broader decline in charitable giving.

Operations and logistics roles made up the bulk of positions that respondents plan to hire for in late 2025, at 40%. That’s followed by sales and business development roles (34%), engineering and IT (33%), and customer support and success (31%).

When asked what challenges they anticipate with recruitment in the latter half of this year, candidates expecting higher pay or better perks was the top issue, selected by 47% of respondents. Another 42% anticipate getting fewer qualified candidates, 39% cited limited hiring budgets or headcount approvals, and 36% said balancing speed with the quality of hires would be a significant issue.

Illustrated uncertain man looks at four empty office chairs with a sign stating "hiring" placed on each one.

Hiring cooldown expected to continue in second half of 2025

Economic uncertainty is the biggest reason why.

Few employers plan to increase hiring in the second half of 2025

 can sometimes feel like a stressful dream you can’t wake up from.

And the stress might get worse as companies reach historic highs in workforce cutbacks. Intel’s recent 

 of a reduction-in-force (RIF) of up to 20% of its 109,000-person staff, or roughly 21,000 jobs, and 

 to cut 20,000 employees would make these RIFs among the largest in 

. The biggest RIFs typically have accompanied 

, as when Citigroup laid off 50,000 employees in 2008, and Hewlett-Packard cut 27,000 jobs in 2012.

 loom large over a workforce that’s already seen 3.5 million 

 so far in 2025. HR Brew spoke with economists about what recent RIFs could signal about the labor market and how HR pros can navigate the year ahead.

“There is absolutely economic uncertainty right now. There are many different policies that are at play…that have a lot of people and companies rightfully taking an approach of, ‘Let’s just sit and wait, see what happens when the dust settles,’” Rachel Sederberg, senior economist at Lightcast, told HR Brew.

 Companies usually approach workforce strategies based on “exposure to risky factors,” Sederberg said. Tech companies and manufacturers, like Intel, might be more likely to reduce their workforce if they’re anticipating a higher cost to make their products with increased tariffs.

“Companies may be behaving that way, and being very cautious, and taking very just calculated moves of minimizing risk, because we don’t know. None of us know what is coming,” Sederberg said. Companies that offer a service might not be drastically impacted by increased tariffs, she added, and may take the approach of slowing down hiring efforts in anticipation of a recession or worsened economic conditions.

HR executives need to be wary of hiring slowdowns, said Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor. Mass layoffs aren’t necessarily an indicator of a bad labor market, he said, but a slowdown in hiring can be a sign of tougher times to come.

“[Think about] a new college grad who isn’t able to find a job, or that laid-off worker who isn’t able to find a new job to re-enter the labor force, or that working parent who is looking for work to supplement their household income, but can’t find a role,” Zhao said. “Those are all examples of how weaker hiring can impact American workers.”

Before companies slow down their hiring efforts or lay off workers, Zhao recommends that HR leaders engage in “scenario planning” for the range of outcomes that could happen over the next year, like a potential recession or even a positive bounce back in the economy.

Meanwhile, Sederberg advised steering clear of extreme measures like massive downsizing in uncertain times and, in the reverse, inflated hiring when times are going well, as with the hiring sprees in 2022 during the Great Resignation, because neither situation is “a forever reality,” she said.

“There’s always going to be changes in the business cycle. There’s always going to be peaks and valleys, and generally speaking, I think most companies just try to do the best they can to project,” she said. “They’re trying to project what they think is likely to happen in the short-to-medium future. Is that always easy? No. And, then when you start bringing global politics, it becomes even more difficult.”

Company layoffs are reaching historic highs—here’s what HR should know

Economists share how hiring slowdowns and layoffs impact the labor market.

Economic uncertainty is in vogue this year.

Last month, only 45.2% of employees expressed confidence in their company’s six-month “business outlook,” according to Glassdoor 

 have sparked anxiety and lowered confidence, Glassdoor’s lead economist Daniel Zhao told HR Brew, and said employers are key in helping their workers get through this economic uncertainty.

“What works for one company might not work for another, so it’s important to understand how your employees are feeling and what works best with them,” Zhao said. “There are some folks who might appreciate having a distraction at work to focus on, but there are also some who might want their employer to acknowledge what’s going on in the world and provide some reassurance.”

As recent tariff news caused the stock market to take a 

 an impending recession, which has elevated 

“Employees are feeling anxious and upset right now, in part, because they have this recent example of a job market that was working for them in ways that it hasn’t in the past,” Zhao said. “Just a few years later, it feels like the pendulum has shifted all the way back towards employers.”

Zhao pointed out that employees also know leaders are capable of being transparent and communicative amid anxiety-provoking times, like they were during the Covid pandemic, so there’s an expectation for leaders to approach a potential recession in the same way.

“Employees have a higher set of expectations for how they want their leaders to show up and communicate,” he said. “Especially since Covid, which was this enormous shock and really changed how we communicate in the workplace.”

 Kyle M.K., a talent strategy advisor at Indeed, agrees with Zhao that employee expectations have increased, so there’s more pressure on HR to be more “creative” and “employee-focused,” he said.

People teams can create spaces for employees to express concerns and ask questions about the health of the business, M.K. told HR Brew, whether it’s during one-on-one meetings with their managers, skip-level meetings with senior leaders, or town halls with executives. This culture of “psychological safety” and empathy may not have been present before Covid, he said, but it’s expected now.

Zhao said HR leaders can also help employees feel like they’re not alone and make clear that the entire workforce is working through this economic uncertainty together.

“There were a lot of leaders who came out of the pandemic, actually, with renewed confidence from their employees, because they were transparent and willing to be vulnerable when they didn’t necessarily know the answers,” he said.