The Agenda:
Who is hiring?
Top HR and work-related articles
Tips for CV making, job search, interviews, and career progression
Industries trends
Leadership
Recruitment news
Freelancing news
Vocational guidance
Mindfulness
Psychological insert
Top stories from my clients
Blog recap
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Who is hiring?
Headline numbers are stable, but thatâs masking weaker conditions underneath.
Global unemployment is projected to hold around 4.9%, but the ILOâs broader âjobs gapâ measure (people who want work but canât access it) sits at roughly 408 million, far larger than the unemployment figure suggests.
Job quality has stalled even where headline numbers look fine, and youth unemployment remains a particular pain point globally (12.4%), with urban youth unemployment in China reaching nearly 18% in 2025.
Itâs a âlow-hire, low-fireâ market.
In the US and several other major economies, layoffs remain low, but so does hiring and voluntary quitting.
Job openings are technically up in places (the US JOLTS report showed 7.6 million openings in early June), but actual hires have dropped, creating a real bottleneck.
Employers are posting roles but being far more selective about who they bring on.
Quitting rates below pre-COVID levels suggest workers are also less confident about jumping ship right now.
AI is the defining structural force, and itâs bifurcating the market.
PwCâs June 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer (based on over a billion job ads) found jobs requiring specific AI skills are growing roughly eight times faster than the overall jobs market, with a 62% wage premium for those skills.
At the same time, AI is raising the bar for entry-level roles.
AI-exposed junior positions increasingly demand senior-level judgment and leadership rather than routine execution, and traditionally, routine entry-level work is shrinking.
This is squeezing the âapprenticeshipâ pathway into careers that used to exist for early-career workers.
Regional divergence is sharper than usual: high- and upper-middle-income economies are seeing modest job creation, but ageing populations are keeping unemployment artificially stable.
Low-income countries are seeing rapid labour force growth (employment up 3.1% projected for 2026), but much of it in lower-quality jobs.
Manufacturing and tech in the US show mixed but cautiously positive employment signals; the UK and Ireland have stabilised after a softer 2025; Japanâs market stays tight despite slowing wage growth.
Geopolitical and trade risk is a wildcard; tariff policy uncertainty and energy price shocks tied to Middle East tensions have pushed inflation expectations up in some readings, which could further dampen hiring if it persists through the second half of the year.
Top 10 Multinationals Hiring Right Now:
JPMorgan Chase
Alphabet (Google)
Amazon
Microsoft
Bristol Myers Squibb
MSD (Merck)
Fidelity Investments
Kyndryl
Aecom
BearingPoint
Top HR and work-related articles
What intentional choices can organisations make to adapt continuously, move with speed, and lead with a human edge?
Deloitteâs 2026 Global Human Capital Trends report argues that 2026 marks a genuine tipping point: the classic growth S-curve, gradual rise, acceleration, plateau, is compressing fast under AI, and organisations can no longer rely on slow, sequential planning.
Seven in ten leaders now say being fast and nimble is their top competitive strategy.
The central shift is that competitive advantage is moving from technology itself, which is easily replicated, toward the âhuman edgeâ: judgment, creativity, and adaptability.
Notably, organisations taking a purely tech-focused approach to AI were significantly more likely to miss their expected ROI than those taking a human-centric one.
The report identifies three tipping points for 2026: moving from humans and machines working side by side to genuine human-machine synergy (raising questions about decision rights and trust in AI data); shifting from pure cost efficiency to value creation, especially as human talent becomes scarcer; and replacing static plans and fixed job structures with dynamic orchestration of people and skills in real time.
The bottom line: reinvention is no longer a one-off event but the new baseline for how work operates.
Organisations that treat disruption as momentum, rather than retreating to old playbooks, will set the pace for everyone else.
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2026 HR Trends: 4 Strategic Priorities for the Modern CHRO.
Gartnerâs 2026 HR Trends and CHRO Priorities research, based on a survey of 426 CHROs across 23 industries and 4 global regions, identifies four top priorities shaping HR strategy this year.
The first is harnessing AI to revolutionise HR, which means CHROs need a clearly defined, HR-focused AI strategy; evolving the HR operating model itself is seen as the single biggest lever for AI productivity gains.
The second is shaping work for the human-machine era, building a ânow-nextâ talent strategy that plans for a blended human-AI workforce under multiple possible scenarios.
The third is mobilising leaders for growth amid uncertainty, shifting leadershipâs role from simply inspiring change to making it a routine, instinctive part of work, which triples the odds of healthy change adoption.
The fourth is addressing âculture atrophy,â embedding desired culture into employeesâ daily work rather than treating it as an abstract value statement; organisations that do this well see up to a 34% lift in employee performance.
Underlying these priorities, Gartner points to broader shifts reshaping HRâs future: AI is increasingly viewed as a viable alternative to human talent in some functions, organisations are walking a tightrope between growth and efficiency, and the employment relationship itself is shifting toward a âgive more, expect lessâ dynamic from employers.
In response, HR is restructuring around three fronts: letting AI absorb more transactional work so HR professionals can focus on strategic talent leadership, developing ânow-nextâ workforce planning to balance immediate performance against long-term goals, and redefining leadership and culture practices to combat talent and change fatigue.
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/human-capital-trends.html
https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/trends/top-priorities-for-hr-leaders
Tips for CV making, job search, interviews, and career progression
10 Expert Interview Tips To Get Hired Faster In The Tough Job Market.
This is a Forbes piece on why todayâs job search feels so brutal, and its core argument is that AI has reshaped hiring in ways candidates increasingly distrust.
The numbers paint a stark picture: more than half of US job seekers spend six months or longer applying without success, and of the small fraction (2%) who land an interview, a third of employers reportedly make up their minds within the first 90 seconds.
Combined with widespread ghosting, this results in what the article frames asâŠ
