Nike, Workday and Citi all cut jobs this week even as layoff claims eased and AI adoption climbed. Add a lawsuit alleging Ford faked layoffs as poor performance, a hiring market drowning in its own application volume, and workers quietly doing two jobs for one paycheck.
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Legal & General, Admiral, BBC Sport, Novo Nordisk, Porsche and Microsoft all cut jobs this week, while new research finds nearly half of CHROs are excluded from AI strategy entirely. Add graduates fighting brutal odds for entry-level roles and women over 50 quietly pushed out, and the pattern holds.
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Candidates now research employers inside AI tools, not on your careers site. An academically referenced guide to Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): the platforms that shape what candidates see, how to communicate your EVP so AI cites it accurately, and how to measure your AI presence.
New China-focused research finds widespread agreement that employer branding should support business strategy. But limited executive ownership, cautious budgets and communication-led measurement suggest a sizeable gap between ambition and execution.
Oracle, Omnicom and KPMG are all cutting jobs this week without blaming AI, even as Uber's own staff say it's already doing their work. Add a Barclays office revolt and fresh evidence that older workers and graduates are both being filtered out of hiring, and the pattern holds all week.
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Younger workers are struggling to get the experience employers want, while experienced candidates increasingly find that years in the workforce count against them. Is hiring becoming biased towards a narrowing middle?
One employee says his AI bonus scheme is really proof he's not needed anymore. Meanwhile UK data centres will create a quarter of the jobs they promised, managers are being cut and reinstated depending on the company, and this week's reckonings over who pays land three different ways.
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Uber, Volkswagen and WPP all cut deeper this week, while Germany and consulting firms asked the people who stayed for more hours or more work, not more pay. The data on what keeps people says none of it is the right lever.
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Employer branding is supposed to help the right people choose an organisation. Too often, it offers polished claims that could belong to almost anyone, leaving candidates to look elsewhere for something more useful.
Fei Zhaojun's boss asked if AI could replace coders. Two weeks later, he and 160 colleagues were laid off. But a new HBR analysis, citing Goldman Sachs, argues most layoffs blamed on AI aren't actually AI's doing at all.
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Employee generated content (EGC) has long been the most credible form of employer branding. The challenge for EB teams is not whether they want it, but how to encourage it, support it, and measure it without stripping out what makes it valuable