A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that remote work, not artificial intelligence, is the primary reason unemployment has risen among recent college graduates, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the increase since the pandemic.
The unemployment rate for college graduates under 29 rose 20% from pre-pandemic levels to 3.7% on average in 2022-2025; for graduates aged 22 to 27, it reached 5.8% last year, the highest outside the pandemic since 2012.
The study compared remotable occupations like software development with in-person fields like nursing and found that unemployment among young college graduates in remotable jobs rose about 1 percentage point, while it declined slightly for workers 29 and older in the same fields.
Employers are reluctant to hire inexperienced workers into remote roles because training and mentoring are harder to do from a distance, the study concludes.
Detailed data from an unnamed Fortune 500 tech company mirrored the broader pattern, with the firm hiring fewer inexperienced workers when offices were closed and shifting back toward younger hires once offices reopened.
Read more via AP
A new study tracking 1.3 million professionals since 2000 finds that roughly one in four American workers goes at least five years without a meaningful raise or promotion before reaching their peak earning years, a pattern that persists even in tight labor markets.
Workers who ultimately stalled averaged 30% wage growth in their first decade on the job, compared with 71% for those who kept advancing, making early career momentum a strong predictor of long-term trajectory.
Public administration had the highest stall rate at 30%, followed by real estate and utilities; information had the lowest at 20.7%.
Workers are roughly half as likely today to receive a better-paying outside job offer than in the 1980s, partly due to employer concentration in many local markets, according to a separate Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis report from April.
Read more via The Wall Street Journal
American and allied intelligence agencies warned this week that Chinese military intelligence operatives are posing as job recruiters on LinkedIn and other professional networking sites to target Western military and government personnel.
Operatives pose as employees of consultancies, think tanks, and HR firms seeking foreign-policy or defense analysts, then ask recruits to write paid "trial reports" that escalate to requests for increasingly sensitive information.
Britain's domestic intelligence service said more than 20,000 people in the U.K. alone have been approached by Chinese agents on LinkedIn in recent years.
The warning covers holders of security clearances and military personnel with knowledge of the Indo-Pacific as primary targets.
More than 35,000 researchers have now taken acting classes through the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, where professional actors teach scientists to be better listeners, recover gracefully from mistakes, and explain their work to people who aren't in their field. The program has a monthslong waiting list and counts Stanford, NASA, and AstraZeneca among its clients. Alda, who helped start it after noticing scientists became stiffer on camera than in conversation, funded part of it by auctioning off the boots and dog tags he wore on MAS*H for $125,000.
Workers over 55 now make up 23.2% of the U.S. workforce, and their ranks grew 17.3% between 2014 and 2025, outpacing overall workforce growth of 11.7%, according to a BLS data analysis by MyPerfectResume.
Workers 65 and older grew by more than 40% over the same period, from 8 million to 11.4 million.
Farming and agricultural management leads all occupations with 54% of workers over 55, followed by school bus drivers at 51.9% and transit and intercity bus drivers at 48.1%.
Credit counselors and loan officers, maids and housekeeping cleaners, and food preparation workers saw the fastest aging over the past decade.
Read more via MyPerfectResume
A new Harris Poll survey of 1,334 employed U.S. adults finds that toxic leadership is widespread, costly, and driving workers out of jobs at a significant rate.
The most common traits workers identified included unfair preferential treatment, lack of recognition, blame-shifting, micromanagement, and taking credit for others' ideas.
Nearly half of respondents said their boss's behavior is causing stress, burnout, or declining mental health, and more than half have sought therapy because of a toxic boss.
One in three say a toxic boss has cost them money through missed bonuses or stalled promotions, and two-thirds have changed jobs because of one.
44% of workers say their company invests more in AI than in coaching or developing people managers.
64% said leadership training is the single most effective fix, ranking it above better pay or more headcount.
Read more via The Harris Poll
A new Prudential study finds a significant disconnect between how employers and employees perceive the impact of rising medical costs, with real consequences for worker wellbeing and productivity.
71% of employees experienced a medical cost increase of 5% or more in the past year, and 22% saw increases of 15% or more.
While 75% of employers believe they are doing enough to help mitigate rising costs, only 46% of employees agree.
Workers are responding by reducing savings, delaying medical care, and putting off treatments, resulting in financial stress (32%), mental health impact (22%), and physical health symptoms (22%).
HR experts recommend organizing employees into cohorts based on life stage and benefit preferences to ensure workers receive targeted communications about relevant benefits at the right time.
Read more via HR Brew
Target is piloting a program to evaluate store employees on how they greet, assist, and engage with shoppers, as the retailer works to make service more consistent across its more than 1,900 locations.
Performance metrics will include quality of customer service, execution, reliability, and teamwork, creating a more structured framework for measuring store service.
More than 300,000 Target employees completed training aimed at making stores easier to shop and services friendlier, the company said.
Target directed store staff late last year to smile, make eye contact, and greet customers within 10 feet, and to ask customers within 4 feet if they need help.
Read more via Bloomberg
President Trump signed an executive order this week reclassifying approximately 8,000 senior federal employees as at-will workers under a new category called Schedule Policy/Career, meaning they can be fired without cause or appeal rights.
Nearly all affected employees are at the GS-15 level, the highest civil service grade, and include policy office leaders, regional office heads, program managers, senior public affairs officers, and those overseeing spending and grants.
The reclassification roughly triples the current number of at-will federal employees, from about 4,000 political appointees to more than 12,000; the administration has not ruled out expanding the pool further.
Affected employees retain whistleblower protections and cannot legally be fired based on political affiliation, but they no longer have the right to appeal terminations.
Read more via NPR
