The Employment Trends Index Rose on Seven of Eight Components
The headline says the labor market is stabilizing. The one hard employer signal inside the index says the opposite.
Series
One Number
Single figures from the labor data, taken apart.
62 pieces
New Entrants Drove 85% of the Unemployment Rise
The headline unemployment rate barely moved. Almost all the damage was absorbed by workers trying to enter the labor force for the first time.
Employment Outside Healthcare Fell by 367,000
Healthcare added 618,000 jobs over the past 12 months. Every other sector combined lost ground.
Unemployment Rose in 14 Places Last Year. It Fell in 2.
The national 4.4% rate looks stable. Underneath, state-level deterioration is outpacing improvement seven to one.
AI Drove 25% of March Layoffs
Employers cited AI for one in four announced cuts last month, up from one in twenty for all of 2025. The narrative shift is happening in real time.
Managers Now Spend Less Than 10% of Their Time Developing Their People
Gallup, Microsoft, and Gartner all point to the same problem: managers are buried in meetings and admin. The people they’re supposed to develop are paying for it.
Three in Ten Workers Are AI Power Users
The conventional worry about AI and workplace isolation has the causality exactly backward.
The Average Manager Now Oversees 12.1 People
The average manager now oversees 12.1 people, up 11% in a single year. The de-layering math has inverted, and most orgs haven't noticed yet.
Manager Engagement Drops to a 12-Year Low
Global manager engagement fell five points in a single year.
The Labor Force Shrank by 396,000 Workers in March
Payrolls look fine. But the pool of available workers is quietly contracting — and the sectors still growing are not the ones most managers hire from.
One in Three U.S. Workers Is Now Gig or Contract
SHRM named workforce fragmentation its top HR trend for 2026. Most managers are running mixed teams with full-time assumptions. That gap is getting expensive.
Job Openings Fall Below 7 Million as Quits Rate Hits Five-Year Low
The labor market is freezing in both directions. Workers aren't quitting; employers aren't hiring. That combination is more complicated than it looks.