The world's HR news, every day
Meta is reportedly weighing cuts to 16,000 jobs, 20% of staff, to fund AI infrastructure spending that could reach $135 billion in 2026, Reuters reports. The company has already cut about 8,000 jobs this year, roughly 10% of its workforce, and canceled plans to hire 6,000 people.
California signed SB 947, the No Robo Bosses Act, and SB 951 on September 30, 2026. SB 947 sets requirements for automated decision systems used in discipline and termination and becomes operative July 1, 2027. SB 951 adds disclosure requirements to qualifying Cal/WARN notices when AI or other automation substantially contributes to a workforce reduction.
DHS published a final rule in the Federal Register on Oct. 14, effective that day, finalizing an interim rule that ended automatic extensions of work permits (EADs). Rep. Greg Steube urged ending H-1B entirely and backed his EXILE Act (H.R. 7451), which would set the H-1B cap at zero from fiscal 2027 but has seen no action. Rep. Riley Moore also attacked H-1B and OPT.
Google has begun offering 'voluntary exit packages', according to a Reuters report cited by Yahoo Finance. The article says Microsoft recently offered buyouts to 60,000 employees and Oracle cut 21,000 (about 13% of staff), with big tech layoffs and buyouts topping 100,000 this year. It is unclear whether Google's program will remain voluntary.
The UK Prime Minister announced plans to legally require employers to publish salaries in job adverts. The government estimates only 41% of employers always publish salary ranges and 18% always publish specific salaries. It said the change would help young jobseekers and address pay inequalities that can disadvantage women.
Australia's Woodside Energy plans to eliminate at least 500 jobs globally, around 10% of its workforce, as it steps up cost-cutting. It had 4,693 employees as of December 2025. It expects to raise its cost-saving target to $400 million from $350 million. Affected units, roles and locations have not been disclosed.
Per Fragomen, the minimum monthly salary for a Saudi national to count fully under Nitaqat will rise from SAR 4,000 to SAR 5,000 effective April 25, 2027, then to SAR 6,000 from April 25, 2028. Separate thresholds apply to some professions, including engineering (SAR 8,000), marketing (SAR 5,500) and housing supervisors (SAR 5,000).
Canada plans to welcome up to 622,000 new permanent residents in 2027, per Budget 2026 and the 2027–2029 Immigration Levels Plan published Nov. 5. The total combines a 422,000 top-of-range admissions target with up to 200,000 in-Canada temporary residents transitioning to PR, 100,000 of them earmarked for skilled workers via Express Entry and the PNP.
Canva announced a restructuring affecting 1,271 people, or 22% of its workforce. In a note to staff, CEO Melanie Perkins said affected employees would receive at least six months' salary regardless of location, plus career support, and may keep their laptops. Some HR leaders called the package generous by industry standards.
The Daily Brief: the day's top HR news in one page. The Weekly: the week's stories, deals and rule changes.
HR Magazine reports that workplace technology boosts individual rather than team productivity.
Meta is reportedly weighing cuts to 16,000 jobs, 20% of staff, to fund AI infrastructure spending that could reach $135 billion in 2026, Reuters reports. The company has already cut about 8,000 jobs this year, roughly 10% of its workforce, and canceled plans to hire 6,000 people.
Comedian Russell Brand was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of one count of rape and three of sexual assault, involving six women between 1999 and 2009. The Metropolitan Police is reportedly investigating two further rape allegations, and employers including the BBC, MTV and Channel 4 are accused of turning a blind eye. Peninsula's Kate Palmer said the case is a reminder of employers' duty to prevent third-party harassment.
AMN Healthcare's 10-Q shows Q3 revenue of $717.3 million, up 13%, and net income of $33.4 million. For nine months, revenue rose 40% to $2,768.9 million and net income was $116.7 million versus an $88.0 million loss. Labor disruption services brought $806.3 million; settlement of three event reconciliations is expected in Q4.
Docebo reported Q3 2026 revenue of $70.3 million, up 14%, with subscription revenue up 12% to $65.2 million. Net income rose to $9.4 million from $6.1 million and adjusted EBITDA increased 35% to $16.7 million. ARR reached $261.5 million, up 11%.
The Eleventh Circuit upheld an airline's win on an employee's race discrimination and retaliation claims. Three witnesses contradicted her account of a workplace dispute, and the company reasonably read her later email to the CEO as supporting its conclusion that she had lied. The short gap between her complaint and firing did not overcome the evidence for the company's stated reason.
Randstad said 86% of surveyed organizations plan to expand their tech headcount, and job postings requiring AI skills rose more than fivefold year on year. The report covers 11 markets, 1,100 interviews, over 20 million job postings and about 100 million candidate profiles. It found banks pay software engineers a median 13% premium over tech companies.
Culture Amp research found 87% of employees know what high performance looks like, but only half say their organisation acts when someone falls short. Only 51% of European and UK staff say resources are directed toward goals, and 54% put organisational success first, below the 61% global average. 87% said line managers hold them accountable.
A Top Employers Institute study of more than 10,000 workers in 15 countries found 81% of blue-collar and 74% of white-collar workers had worked in the opposite type of role. 61% believed they moved or could move between the two types of work within their current organisation. The report is titled Beyond Collar Colours.
The Dutch cabinet plans to let working status holders request up to three extra years to complete civic integration, provided they have worked at least 28 hours a week for a minimum of three months. The current term is three years. The rules are intended to take effect in the first half of 2027.
Clifford Chance says many EU member states missed the 7 June 2026 deadline to transpose the 2023 Pay Transparency Directive, though it is already shaping equal pay claims trends. Some countries have implemented it, others are still debating, and some have no draft. The firm advises employers to review job classifications and pay-setting processes now.
Principal Financial CEO Deanna Strable says employers must rethink careers, training and retirement as EU life expectancy exceeds 81 years. Per Eurostat, a record two-thirds of EU 55–64-year-olds were employed in 2025. Strable says Principal has trained all 19,000 of its employees in AI over the past 18 months.
Per China Hairdressing and Cosmetology Association data, salon numbers peaked at 1.144 million; in Q1 2026 alone 213,000 closed or were transferred while 127,000 opened, a net loss of 86,000. The article says low-price 10-yuan cuts are growing in county towns while mid-priced salons struggle, with some staff leaving the trade.
The Uttar Pradesh government has approved a 30-day bonus for eligible state employees for FY 2025-26, covering non-gazetted staff and daily-wage workers, with the bonus capped at Rs 1,184 for the latter. Employees get 25% in cash and 75% in provident fund accounts; retirees receive all in cash. Separately, Tamil Nadu announced bonus and ex-gratia of up to 20% for Group C and D public-sector employees, benefiting around 2.60 lakh workers.
California signed SB 947, the No Robo Bosses Act, and SB 951 on September 30, 2026. SB 947 sets requirements for automated decision systems used in discipline and termination and becomes operative July 1, 2027. SB 951 adds disclosure requirements to qualifying Cal/WARN notices when AI or other automation substantially contributes to a workforce reduction.
The Braunschweig labor court announced a further ruling for Friday, Nov. 6, in a dismissal dispute involving a Volkswagen upper-management employee. Two managers were dismissed after allegedly contacting authorities in summer 2024 under the whistleblower protection act. In the other case, the court ruled in February the summary dismissal was invalid but the ordinary dismissal effective Sept. 30, 2026 was valid.
The school said its unpaid job-shadowing teacher recruitment was poorly considered and has been halted, with no one actually recruited.
A regional capacity-building and awareness programme on labour codes, Shram Samvad, was held in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh.
Hong Kong-listed Weilong Delicious Global announced on Nov. 3 that co-founder Liu Fuping resigned as CEO and became co-vice chairman. The board appointed Yu Feng, 35, as CEO and co-vice chairman, and Chen Yang as CFO, effective Nov. 3, 2026. Yu's base salary is RMB 3.3301 million per year plus discretionary bonus.
Upwork reported Q3 2026 revenue of $185.6 million, down from $201.73 million a year earlier, while net income rose to $31.81 million, or $0.25 per share. The company also announced a CFO transition and launched the public beta of its Upwork Now hiring product. Early testing showed hires often completed in under 30 minutes.
Cat Wu announced her departure from Anthropic on Nov. 4 and joined OpenAI on Nov. 5 to handle product management for its core product team. She was an early lead of Claude Code, which the article says reached a $2.5 billion annualized run rate in Feb. 2026; several team members have left since late October.
Chain restaurants including Laoxiangji, Xiaocaiyuan and Nanchengxiang are widely using stir-fry robots, and a one-person-multiple-machines model is estimated to raise kitchen efficiency by 30%-50%. Statistics put the chef talent gap at about 3 million. The mainstream model is human-machine collaboration, with a new role of cooking technology application operator.
The ILO and the European Commission will co-host the Just Transition Pavilion at COP31 for the fifth consecutive year. Under the theme 'Advancing a Just Transition from Commitment to Implementation', it focuses on employment security, workforce development and social protection. IOE, ITUC and UNFCCC are collaborating; host Türkiye will hold a dedicated Türkiye Day.
Remote has launched virtual Expense Cards for eligible Employer of Record employees in supported countries, usable typically within one business day. Companies can preset who can use the cards, what can be bought and spending limits, with transactions logged automatically in Remote Expenses. Remote cited research that 68% of surveyed UK office workers incurred bank fees covering business expenses.
Responding on 3 November to a netizen claim that a Ziyang District housing bureau employee in Yiyang was still working after a suspended sentence, the bureau said it has paid him a living allowance of 75% of base salary since March 2024, with allowances and bonuses stopped. It said it has not yet received a court judgment or other formal legal documents and will act accordingly once it does.
A six-study paper in The Leadership Quarterly, with five incentivised experiments and one field study of academic supervisors, found supervisors trusted employees' accounts 68% of the time when the task was done independently, versus 24% when AI output was used. Lower trust was linked to poorer perceived performance and promotability. The penalty was not significant when companies explicitly encouraged LLM use but remained when AI was prohibited.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has decided to survey working conditions abroad after a series of overwork deaths and suicides among overseas workers. Vice Minister Yasuhito Urano told a bereaved-family group of the plan on 6 November, the group said. The ministry says expatriates are in principle not covered by the Labor Standards Act.
Firms will be required to include salary information in job adverts under government plans, HR Grapevine reports. A legal expert warns the rules could create tensions over existing staff pay and make businesses more cautious about hiring.
HR Grapevine reports that, after years of debate on how HR must evolve, CIPD chief executive Neil Carberry offered a confident vision of a profession equipped to lead through uncertainty, urging HR to be a bit noisier.
Cambodia's Labor Ministry spokesperson said more than 560,000 citizens, nearly 300,000 of them women, received National Social Security Fund (NSSF) benefits in the first nine months of the year. NSSF is the sole body running occupational risk, health care and pension schemes and is advancing digitalization.
Personalmagazin's issue 12/2026 focuses on the HR spirit, drawing on studies and the HR community. It features TKMS CEO Oliver Burkhard on moving from CHRO to CEO, AI risks, and an exploratory study of 26 HR leaders on how AI is changing HR tasks, roles and structures.
Japan's labor ministry plans to survey overseas working conditions, Vice Minister Yasuhito Urano told a bereaved-family group on 6 November. The group submitted a petition asking for guidelines requiring firms to track working hours. Urano reportedly indicated guidelines would be drawn up based on the survey results. Expatriates are generally outside the Labor Standards Act.
At its October plenary, the EESC adopted an opinion on the Commission's proposal for revised employment guidelines, stressing that workers' rights must not be jeopardised by deregulation. It cites AI systems, subcontracting and gender imbalances, welcomes reduced administrative burdens and shifting taxation away from labour, and calls for higher collective bargaining coverage.
Canva announced a workforce restructuring after projected revenue growth slowed from 30% to 20%, with around 1,271 employees reportedly affected, The Federal reports. The exit package includes healthcare, career support and grants of up to USD 10,000, and staff without a personal laptop can keep their company MacBook.
EPFO launched WhatsApp-based balance check services on November 1, 2026, but users received error messages when trying to access EPF balance details, Outlook Money reports. The report cites nearly 80 million subscribers.
Brunel International reported Q3 results on November 6, 2026: revenue fell 1% to €301.2 million (2% organically). Reported EBIT rose 43% to €8.9 million, while underlying EBIT fell 5% to €11.4 million. Non-recurring costs declined to €2.4 million from €5.7 million.
A Remote survey found 96% of Singapore respondents said their organisations built internal tools, automations or workflows rather than buying off-the-shelf software in the past 12 months. Only 37% called custom AI development a deliberate strategy, while 59% built ad hoc. Remote warned that building without governance risks legal and operational exposure.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal in Al-Ateeqi v Kuwait Investment Authority [2026] EAT 169, handed down on 5 November 2026, dismissed a former chief executive's appeal and upheld the Authority's state immunity defence. His whistleblowing detriment and unfair dismissal claims cannot proceed before an Employment Tribunal. The KIA's cross-appeal was also dismissed.
The Hans India reports that on September 11, 2026 the US Department of Homeland Security published a proposal to eliminate the discretionary grace period when employment is terminated. Public comments close Nov 10. The proposal does not eliminate the current protection.
Upwork has added direct withdrawals to local mobile wallets in PKR for Pakistani freelancers, covering JazzCash, Easypaisa, NayaPay, SadaPay and Finja. The feature began appearing in accounts on November 6, with a flat $1.99 fee per withdrawal. Funds typically arrive within minutes.