The daily on talent acquisition technology
Earlier Stories · Page 9
via Staffing Industry Analysts
Research from Robert Half and Textkernel finds UK IT vacancies rose 42% on a quarterly basis in Q2 2026, though still down 20% year-on-year. Manufacturing, logistics, and utilities also posted strong quarterly gains, pointing to a more resilient recruitment market than at the start of the year.
The European Commission's draft guidelines on classifying high-risk AI systems under Article 6 of the EU AI Act introduce a 'material influence' test: even where a human recruiter makes the final decision, an AI system that heavily influences which candidates advance qualifies as high-risk. Stakeholder consultation closes 23 July 2026, with final guidelines expected by end of year.
via ERE
Gerry Crispin and the CXR Foundation have drafted a Baseline Standard for Applicant Closure requiring employers to communicate disposition decisions to 100% of applicants. The standard prohibits ghosting and the non-committal 'we'll contact you if interested' response, and requires ATS systems to timestamp five key stages from submission to closure.
via Acas
Acas's 2025-26 annual report reveals a 27% increase in early conciliation notifications, with over 150,000 potential tribunal claims handled. The workplace advice service answered 584,000 helpline calls, trained 400,000 people, and saw its web content appear in nearly 400 million Google search results — a 38% increase on the previous year.
via HRM Asia
Accenture's Talent Reinventors report surveys 1,320 C-suite executives and 4,560 employees across 20 industries, finding that only 18% of organisations deliver measurable value from AI in talent. Fragmented systems, outdated roles, and a CIO-CHRO partnership gap are the top obstacles.
The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index declined to 106.69 in June from 106.90 in May, the second consecutive monthly drop. Consumer pessimism about job availability hit a four-year high while employer difficulty filling positions rose 3 points to 32%.
via HR Brew
Citi's HR department ran an internal AI hackathon engaging 180 HR employees across 35 teams. The winning project combined employee profiles, skills data, and job descriptions to recommend internal career opportunities. Citi is already iterating to add learning recommendations.
via ERE
Writing in ERE, Deborah Williamson argues that second-chance hiring belongs in mainstream talent strategy. One in three American adults has a criminal record, yet ATS filters and background check workflows exclude them by default — including from the sectors reporting the most acute labour shortages.
via Personnel Today
The OECD Employment Outlook 2026 finds employment across 38 member countries at a record 670 million, but the UK has the third-highest unemployment increase in the bloc and ranks second for labour market exposure to AI impact — with London at 76.6% exposure.
The UK Information Commissioner's Office has published draft guidance making clear that nominal human involvement does not convert an automated hiring decision into a non-automated one. A reviewer who 'simply approves whatever the system outputs, without the authority, information, or time to reach a different conclusion' is not providing meaningful human involvement. The consultation closed 29 May; final guidance is expected this summer. The ICO chose recruitment as its test case deliberately, drawing on evidence from over 30 employers.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted on 30 June to rescind its ~40-year-old affirmative action interpretive guidelines. Separately, a 9 June Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memorandum concluded that disparate impact liability under Title VII is unconstitutional. The EEOC's new National Enforcement Plan, issued 4 June, prioritises 'overt discrimination' and anti-DEI enforcement over systemic disparate impact cases. Together, these moves reshape the legal landscape for AI hiring tools — which are most commonly challenged under disparate impact theory.
The EU AI Act's high-risk system obligations become enforceable for employment-related AI on 2 August 2026 — 25 days from now. AI tools used for screening, ranking, candidate evaluation, and targeted job advertising all fall under Annex III. Fines reach €15 million or 3% of global annual turnover. Most organisations are unprepared, and the European Commission's Digital Omnibus package has not delayed the deadline.
The US has 7.6 million job openings — a two-year high — but the quits rate has been stuck at 1.9% for nearly a year, well below pre-pandemic norms. Indeed Hiring Lab's analysis of May 2026 JOLTS data argues that flat hiring and historically low worker mobility reveal a confidence problem that headline vacancy counts are masking.
via Skills England
Skills England's first Annual Skills Report, updated 23 June, assesses skills demand and supply across 10 priority sectors and finds demand expected to grow by roughly 24% over the next decade — while current training and recruitment pipelines are misaligned with where the jobs will be.
via ManpowerGroup
ManpowerGroup's Q3 2026 Employment Outlook Survey shows UK employers bucking the global trend with a Net Employment Outlook of +37 — fourth highest globally — while global hiring intentions fell in 33 of 42 countries. But the UK's headline masks a sharp regional divide, with the North West at +48 and London trailing at +32.
via PwC
PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, analysing over a billion job ads, reveals a two-track labour market where 'professionalised' roles grow twice as fast and command 42% higher wages than 'democratised' ones — and entry-level AI-exposed roles are now seven times more likely to demand traditionally senior skills.
via Bureau of Labor Statistics
The US added just 57,000 nonfarm jobs in June, while revisions wiped out 74,000 from April and May combined. Long-term unemployment rose 286,000 over the year, and leisure and hospitality shed 61,000 jobs in a single month.
via HR Magazine
The UK Treasury removed numerical reasoning tests from its graduate recruitment process after a review found 'adverse impact on candidate diversity.' The decision, made for the 2020 campaign but only now coming to light, splits expert opinion sharply.
via CFO Dive
Technology firms announced 139,156 job cuts in H1 2026, an 83% year-over-year increase, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. AI-driven restructuring accounted for 101,743 cuts across all sectors — the top reason for layoffs for the fourth consecutive month.
via SHRM
A software engineer secured a religious accommodation to avoid using AI at work, opening the door for a wave of faith-based AI exemption requests. SHRM warns HR leaders to prepare policies now, with EEOC religious discrimination charges already up 70% since 2021.
Each edition is researched and written for TA professionals navigating the intersection of talent and technology.