Ongoing economic anxiety has shifted power back to employers and workers are increasingly less willing to quit over return-to-office mandates, according to a new MyPerfectResume survey.
Highlights from the survey of 1,000 U.S. workers:
Just 7% of U.S. workers now say they would quit outright over a mandatory return-to-office policy, down from 51% who said the same in January 2025.
When faced with non-negotiable RTO mandates, 36% say they would comply, 33% say they would search for another remote job, 7% say they would quit immediately, and 25% selected none of the above. (That's compared to early 2025 when 91% said they would either quit or search for remote work.)
74% believe their bargaining power to demand flexibility will stay the same or decline in 2026.
73% predict employers will expand surveillance tools in 2026, including keystroke tracking, badge-in monitoring, and activity analytics.
48% believe productivity concerns fuel the return-to-office push, followed by leadership preference (18%), real-estate cost justification (11%), and quiet headcount reduction (11%)—with culture concerns cited by just 9%.
44% believe at least half of U.S. companies will have eliminated remote work entirely by the end of 2026, while 40% expect on-site workers will be favored for pay and promotions.
Read more via MyPerfectResume
Online applications are still the main way candidates land interviews and job offers, even as their effectiveness declines amid a surge in AI-generated applications, according to new analysis from Glassdoor.
Online applications still lead: In 2025, online applications accounted for 66% of interviews and 60% of job offers. While that’s still more than all other sourcing channels combined, the gap has narrowed considerably.
Online applications peaked in 2023: From 2012 through 2023, online applications rose in dominance. In 2023, online applications drove 76% of interviews, up from just 53% in 2012. In 2024, the “proportion of interviews starting with online applications ticked down” to 75% and then dropped to 66% in 2025.
Recruiter sourcing is rising fast: As "noise" from online applications has increased due to AI, recruiters are doing more direct outreach. The share of recruiter-sourced candidates has climbed 72% since 2023, increasing from 8.6% to 14.8%.
Referrals continue to outperform: Between July 2024 and July 2025, referrals generated just 7.9% of interviews but led to 10.2% of job offers. Interviews from referrals were 35% more likely to turn into offers than those from online applications.
Big differences by industry: Nonprofit, government, and education employers rely most heavily on online applications, each at roughly 84% of interviews. Construction, information technology, and manufacturing organizations are less dependent on job boards and make greater use of referrals and recruiter outreach.
Read more via Glassdoor
While talent acquisition teams are moving faster and retaining new hires longer, candidate engagement continues to decline, according to Employ Inc.'s new Hiring Benchmarks Report.
Highlights from the analysis of data from 6,640 customers:
Candidate engagement declined: Engagement rates fell from 1.2% in 2024 to 0.8% in 2025, with fewer people clicking through on recruitment marketing emails.
Candidates are being screened faster: Time from application to initial screening interview improved from 8.3 days in 2024 to 7.2 days in 2025.
Time to fill shortened: Time to fill decreased from 67.7 days in 2024 to 63.5 days in 2025. However, time to hire increased slightly from 45.7 days to 46.2 days.
Retention improved dramatically: First-year turnover fell from 23.7% in 2024 to 12.1% in 2025, a sign that employers are "getting onboarding right."
Read more via Employ Inc.
HR leaders face an expanded mandate to navigate AI-enabled workforce challenges, mounting performance pressure, and shifting employment dynamics, according to Gartner.
AI-driven layoffs: Many business leaders are "optimistic about the potential of AI investments to increase productivity and innovation," and have "reduced headcount" as a result. However, only 1% of layoffs in the first half of 2025 resulted from AI actually increasing employee productivity. People leaders are “being asked to make cuts to their teams on the basis of AI returns that have not yet been realized, and may never be.”
Disengaged employees: Organizations are expecting more from employees without offering more in return (compensation, flexibility, or benefits), leading to "regrettable retention" where disengaged employees stay in roles and damage employment brands.
AI's mental health toll: CHROs must ensure managers can spot symptoms of disordered AI use and negative psychological impacts, while proactively working with legal and IT to prevent and respond to the potential AI-related mental health toll.
AI workslop: Pressure to adopt AI for all possible use cases without time to evaluate quality is creating an abundance of fast but poor-quality work.
AI-enabled applications and fraud: AI is enabling easier applications and even fraud. Many employers are having to increase the amount of human involvement in the hiring process to sort through the influx of candidates.
AI-proof careers: Workers will increasingly seek "AI-proof" careers in skilled trades, requiring employers to plan retention strategies, offer reskilling support, and build new skilled trade pipelines.
Read more via Gartner
65% of frontline supervisors obtained their positions based on individual performance or years of experience rather than supervisory capabilities, resulting in lower engagement levels that negatively impact their teams, according to Gallup.
Highlights from Gallup's research:
Engagement gap among supervisors: Frontline supervisors promoted for individual performance show 31% engagement, compared to 42% for those selected based on supervisory skills or experience—an 11 percentage-point difference.
Limited training participation: Only 45% of frontline supervisors participated in supervisor training within the past year, while 23% have never received any supervisory training.
Training delivers measurable benefits: Supervisors who completed training in the past year are 79% more likely to be engaged, 19% less likely to experience frequent burnout, and 11% less likely to actively seek new employment.
Manager engagement drives team performance: Managers' own engagement accounts for at least 70% of variance in team-level engagement, with top-quartile engaged managers achieving teams that are 11 percentile points higher in engagement than average.
Frontline workers already lag in engagement: Frontline workers in the U.S. have lower engagement (26%) than the broader U.S. workforce (32%), making supervisor engagement gaps particularly damaging.
Better selection results in higher financial returns: Hiring based on managerial talent rather than individual performance increased sales or revenue by 21% per manager and profit by 32% per manager, according to meta-analysis of 136 studies covering 14,597 managers.
Read more via Gallup
