The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's latest Survey of Professional Forecasters delivered some genuine good news: 37 economists from major banks and universities now predict GDP growth of 2.6% this quarter, up sharply from their prior estimate of 1.6%. For all of 2026, the consensus forecast is 2.5% growth — a meaningful upgrade from last quarter. The odds of the economy contracting this quarter fell to 17.8%, down from 24.0%. Over the next decade, forecasters expect annual growth of around 2.1% and inflation averaging 2.3% per year. Productivity growth expectations also rose, from 1.6% to 1.8% annually. Read more via the Philadelphia Fed
The job market picture is more mixed. Unemployment is expected to stay relatively stable — hovering between 4.4% and 4.5% through year-end — and employers are on pace to add roughly 83,000 jobs this month. But that number is forecast to average just 48,500 per month for the full year, well below recent years. People are keeping their jobs, but companies aren't hiring as aggressively as they were.
The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index also edged up in February, despite the disappointing February Jobs Report — rising from 105.18 in January to 105.37. The largest positive contributor for the second straight month was a decline in involuntary part-time workers, down from 19.4% in December to 16.2% in February. Still, six of the eight components in the composite index were negative. Read more via The Conference Board
U.S. manufacturing expanded for the seventh straight month in February, but the pace of growth was the slowest in that stretch, according to S&P Global's Purchasing Managers' Index. Output and new orders grew more slowly than in January, with companies pointing to high prices, tariffs, and severe weather. Exports fell for the eighth consecutive month, with Canada tariffs cited as a primary driver. On the positive side, business confidence about the year ahead hit its highest level since June 2025. Read more via S&P Global
A growing number of economists and labor researchers are sounding the alarm: the U.S. white-collar job market has contracted for 29 consecutive months. Experts describe that as "incredibly unusual" and unprecedented outside of a recession. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is "masking the problem" — many workers are underemployed, while others are quietly leaving the workforce entirely rather than showing up in unemployment counts. At several top business schools, the share of graduates still job-hunting three months after graduation has tripled or quadrupled compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The central question hanging over all of it: is AI already replacing white-collar workers, rather than making existing workers more productive? And if AI does eventually create new jobs, those gains could be years away — and whether humans will be needed for them remains to be seen. Read more via Quartz
Net immigration dropped from 2.7 million in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025 and is projected to fall to just 321,000 this year, according to a new Deloitte analysis. That's a significant problem for an economy already contending with a shrinking native-born population and low birth rates.
The effects are already showing up in the hiring data. Monthly job growth averaged just 29,000 between October and December 2025 — down from 166,000 per month in 2024 — with the biggest slowdowns in construction, transportation, and manufacturing. High-skilled immigrants contribute disproportionately: they make up 5% of the workforce but generate over 10% of national labor income and account for nearly a third of all U.S. innovation. And despite common assumptions, research generally finds that immigration doesn't hurt wages or job prospects for native-born workers — if anything, native workers tend to move into higher-skilled roles, raising overall productivity. Read more via Deloitte
Since the U.S. and Israel began military strikes against Iran, a key global shipping route has been severely disrupted, triggering a cascade of economic effects. The Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20% of the world's oil passes — has effectively been shut down, sending energy prices surging. Europe and Asia, which rely more heavily on Middle Eastern oil and gas than the U.S., are expected to feel the impact most sharply. Up to 30% of the world's fertilizer exports also pass through the Strait, raising costs for farmers that are likely to be passed on to consumers. Higher energy prices push inflation up while also slowing economic growth, leaving central banks with no easy path forward.
For employers, the practical implications are real: sustained energy and food inflation will put upward pressure on wages as workers' purchasing power gets squeezed. Supply chain costs for businesses with energy-intensive operations or global logistics are likely to rise. And the prospect of higher interest rates for a longer period of time could slow business investment and hiring. Economists believe the global economy can absorb the shock if the conflict is short-lived. Read more via Euronews
Business travel in the Middle East has also been severely disrupted. Tens of thousands of flights have been canceled since strikes began on Feb. 28, leaving thousands of business travelers stranded. Many employers have ceased Middle East travel entirely, while others are working to secure the safety of workers still in the region. Experts recommend that multinational firms closely monitor the status of visas and work permits for employees who may need to travel or renew documentation in the coming weeks. Read more via HR Brew, CNBC
A pro-Iran hacktivist group claimed responsibility for a sweeping cyberattack against Stryker, a Kalamazoo, Michigan-based medical device company with 56,000 employees and $25 billion in annual sales. The attack wiped data from more than 200,000 systems and forced operations to shut down across 79 countries. Stryker acknowledged the attack was "severe," affecting all company laptops and systems connected to its network. The company sent more than 5,000 workers home from its Ireland facility.
One piece of equipment disrupted was Lifenet, an IT system emergency responders use to transmit patient data to hospitals. Maryland's emergency medical services agency reported the system was "non-functional in most parts of the state," directing paramedics to relay patient information verbally. The attack is believed to be one of the first significant Iran-linked strikes on U.S. infrastructure since bombing began last month. Iran has issued warnings that U.S. companies with ties to Israel — or whose technology "has been used to assist military operations" — could be targeted. Read more via CNN, Krebs on Security, NBC News, Zero Day
The data is in, and it's striking. Most of the companies that made AI-related job cuts are now rehiring for roles they recently eliminated, according to a new Careerminds report based on a survey of 600 HR professionals. Two thirds of those companies have already rehired for at least a quarter of the roles they eliminated — and more than half did so within six months.
The financial case didn't hold up either. Nearly 31% of companies spent more on rehiring than they ever saved from the cuts, and another 42% simply broke even. The most common problem: AI needed far more human oversight than expected, cited by more than half of HR leaders. A third said they lost critical skills and institutional knowledge they couldn't easily replace. More than half of the roles that were cut could have been transitioned into different jobs instead — but reskilling and redeployment were "never formally discussed" at 55% of the companies surveyed. The bottom line: 90% of HR leaders say they would approach AI-driven layoffs differently if they had the chance to do it over. Read more via Careerminds, Washington Times, Human Resources Director
The gap between what men and women earn starts at 12% for workers just entering the workforce and widens to 25% for those with 30 years of experience, according to a Glassdoor analysis of millions of salary reviews. Women's earnings plateau in their late 30s, while men's continue to grow steadily throughout their 40s. By the 10-year mark, roughly half the pay gap is explained by within-role differences — meaning women earn about 4% less than men in similar positions. Women who never step back from their careers still find themselves earning considerably less than men of the same age by age 50. A key contributing factor: women are significantly less likely than men to feel comfortable pursuing promotions, which slows advancement and wage growth over time. Read more via Glassdoor
The financial strain on America's teachers is significant and widening. A new Gallup survey finds that one in three K-12 teachers is currently working a second job outside of education, while 62% are doing additional education-related work like coaching or tutoring on top of their primary role. More than a fifth say they find it difficult to get by on their current household income, and 52% describe themselves as "just getting by." Only 28% report they are "living comfortably." Read more via Gallup
A new Monster survey of more than 800 full-time workers finds that long hours have become standard, even though most workers say the extra time doesn't actually help. 73% of workers regularly exceed 40 hours a week, and 45% describe themselves as definitely workaholic. Yet 80% say working beyond 40 hours doesn't improve the quality of their work, and 85% report negative mental or physical health effects from overworking. Workplace culture is the primary driver — 47% cited employer expectations or company culture, not personal ambition, as the top reason they overwork. More than a third feel very or extremely pressured to be available outside of scheduled work hours. Read more via Monster
New research from Achievers Workforce Institute, based on surveys of more than 6,000 employees across multiple countries, reveals a significant recognition gap with major implications for retention and productivity. More than 67% of workers say they would increase their effort by at least 20% if their contributions were more frequently noticed. Employees who feel appreciated are 2.5 times more likely to stay with their employer and 54 times more likely to report a strong sense of belonging. Those recognized weekly are 2.6 times more likely to describe themselves as operating at peak productivity.
The largest recognition gaps fall on three groups: women (about half as likely as men to feel appreciated, fairly compensated, or supported in career growth), Gen X workers (least likely of any generation to receive weekly recognition or feel a sense of belonging), and healthcare workers (significantly less likely than average to feel valued by their managers). Read more via Achievers Workforce Institute
A new KPMG survey of 100 U.S. CEOs at companies with more than $500 million in revenue finds broad optimism about AI's long-term potential — alongside frank acknowledgment that short-term results have fallen short of expectations. Just 9% of CEOs plan to reduce their workforce due to AI this year. A majority — 55% — expect to increase hiring as a direct result of AI investments. But 77% believe generative AI has been overhyped over the past year, and KPMG's CEO Tim Walsh put it plainly: most companies right now are neither realizing nor can they see the return on investment of the AI they're deploying.
Most CEOs are still figuring out what AI means for their workforce: 67% say they have an initial perspective on how AI will change existing roles but have not yet redefined roles or career paths. 61% are concerned they won't be able to hire the technical AI talent they need. And upskilling current employees — not replacing them — is the top area where CEOs are focusing AI investment. Read more via KPMG, Axios
OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy released a visualization of Bureau of Labor Statistics data that scored every U.S. occupation on AI exposure from 0 to 10. Jobs at the highest risk of AI replacement included medical transcriptionists (10/10), software developers (9/10), and lawyers (8/10), collectively affecting roughly 60 million positions. Safer roles, according to the visualization, were those involving complex physical labor — cleaners, plumbers, and similar trades. The tool quickly went viral before Karpathy briefly took it down, citing concerns that people were "sensationalizing" it and "wildly misinterpreting" the scores as predictions of job loss rather than exposure. The tool is now back online with additional context. Read more via Fortune, Karpathy Jobs Visualizer
Large employers are still hiring, but the kinds of jobs they're posting look noticeably different than they did a year ago, according to a new analysis of Fortune 500 job postings by talent intelligence firm Draup. AI skill requirements jumped in customer service, sales, manufacturing, and finance roles over the past year. Jobs that AI can do most easily are disappearing fastest — in finance, postings for highly automatable roles dropped nearly 40% in a single year.
Companies are also leaning more heavily on contractors to get AI-related work done: contract job postings are up 17% year-over-year among Fortune 500 firms. One of the fastest-growing skill areas is AI oversight and risk management, up 81% year over year — a signal that companies are as focused on controlling AI as they are on deploying it. And employers are adding far more individual contributor roles than manager roles, suggesting companies want people who can do the work alongside AI, not just supervise others who do. Read more via Draup
FedEx is building an army of AI agents. By 2028, AI is expected to be integrated into more than half of FedEx's core operational workflows. The company is also focused on getting its human workforce ready to work alongside the technology — last year, FedEx launched an AI education program for 300,000 employees. Read more via The Wall Street Journal
A new website is tracking AI job losses in real time. A real-time AI job loss tracker has been launched by the nonprofit Alliance for Secure AI, announced on March 11. The platform promises real-time tracking of AI-driven layoffs across the U.S. Read more via Jobloss.ai
It took an AI agent just two hours to breach McKinsey's internal chatbot platform. Security startup CodeWall said an autonomous AI agent it deployed as part of a controlled experiment gained full read-and-write access to Lilli, McKinsey's internal generative-AI platform, in roughly two hours. The agent exploited a vulnerability that allegedly exposed 46.5 million chatbot messages — covering corporate strategy, M&A, and client engagements — along with 728,000 confidential files, 57,000 user accounts, and 95 system prompts. About 72% of McKinsey's workforce uses Lilli. The vulnerability has since been patched. Read more via Inc., The Register, McKinsey
YouTube is now offering free deepfake detection to politicians and journalists. Government officials, political candidates, and journalists now have access to a free tool to help them identify and remove AI-generated videos that resemble their appearance. YouTube's likeness detection technology scans uploaded videos for unauthorized use of someone's face. The tool was originally tested with top creators before rolling out more broadly. Read more via NBC News, Axios, YouTube
Thousands of authors have launched an AI protest. Organized around the publication of an "empty book" — blank pages titled Don't Steal This Book — thousands of authors have joined forces to protest the AI sector. The protest's organizer says generative AI is competing with the people whose work it trains on, robbing them of their livelihoods. The book is designed as a warning of a future where human creativity is replaced by algorithm-generated content. Read more via The Guardian, Don't Steal This Book
China set its 2026 GDP growth target at 4.5% to 5%, the lowest the country has established in at least three decades. The downshift signals the world's second-largest economy is entering a period of slower expansion, with broad implications for global trade and supply chains. (The Wall Street Journal)
Germany: Volkswagen reported a 44% drop in net profit in 2025, its worst financial result in years. The automaker announced plans to cut 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030, significantly expanding a cost-cutting plan that had previously targeted 35,000 positions. (Euronews)
Italy: Female employment has grown significantly over the past decade, from 50.5% in Q3 2015 to 58.3% in Q3 2025 — but Italy still lags the EU average by more than 13 percentage points. Eurostat data shows a clear pattern: female employment drops sharply after childbirth, particularly for women with lower levels of education. College-educated women maintain much higher workforce participation even with large families. (L'Unione Sarda)
United Kingdom: UK hiring showed tentative signs of stabilizing in February. Permanent placement declines slowed to their most modest pace since March 2023. Job vacancies have now fallen for 28 consecutive months, though the rate of decline eased to its slowest in nine months. (SIA)
Europe is bracing for a potential wave of migrants from the Middle East as the Iran conflict continues. The International Organization for Migration's director-general said the longer the conflict lasts, the more likely people are to start moving. Roughly 83,000 people have been displaced inside Lebanon in recent days, and European governments are already in active discussions about how to handle an increase in arrivals. (Luxembourg Times)
Get the full interactive edition → View in digital reader
Stay ahead of the market → Subscribe to the Need to Know Briefing to get workforce intelligence delivered to your inbox every week.
The Need to Know Briefing is published weekly by Kelly, curating the most important workforce and hiring insights for HR leaders and hiring managers.