The US labor market is a tale of two halves: While retailers with a strong brick-and-mortar presence are intensifying their hiring efforts, startups are taking a more cautious approach to recruitment as VC funding dries up.

Meta freezes hiring and reduces metaverse investment: Months after an audacious pivot into its VR future, Meta is contending with declining ad sales growth. Will the future wait for Meta to sort itself out?

A commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is critical to Black shoppers—but there’s more to DEI than hiring and employee-engagement practices.

Shein’s legal maneuvers demonstrate its global ambitions: The fast-fashion retailer is expanding its Singapore presence as it attempts to bypass stricter Chinese rules on offshore IPOs.

In its recent updates, ranging from a patent milestone to a hiring push, TD signals to would-be employees that they’ll get a chance to do innovative work for it.

Intel ramps up chip design efforts by hiring Apple’s chip engineer: Apple’s loss is Intel’s gain in 2022, which is poised for intensified silicon competition.

As part of a 227% increase in Asia Pacific employers hiring remotely, Singapore’s tech industry has also been hiring internationally for tech roles, with 11% of talent based in the US, 11% in the Philippines, 9% in India, and 6% in Indonesia. Some companies making moves:.

Surrounding Snap’s update were a series of layoffs and hiring freezes at companies with a heavy influence on digital advertising like Meta, Twitter, and more. Still, that refocusing doesn’t instill much confidence since many advertising platforms are dealing with the fallout from Apple’s ad tracking and privacy changes.

People problems: According to two in three CMOs, hiring new data-savvy personnel is more difficult than upskilling current workers. Retention is getting increasingly tough, according to 36% of marketers. Half of respondents (49%) believe that the quantity of needed manual reporting deters employees from joining their marketing team.

Meta implemented a hiring freeze and shut down its year-old podcasting platform, meaning it will miss out on the projected $1.7 billion in podcast advertising spending this year, per our recent report.

A window of opportunity: Given reports of layoffs and hiring freezes at other Big Tech companies, as well as the industry’s stock market plummet, Microsoft’s planned pay raises could give it an industry advantage. However, September is months away, enough time for Microsoft to experience the attrition it’s trying to avoid. Moving the effective date up could give employees more confidence.

For Big Tech, this translates into layoffs and hiring freezes as it’s forced to rein in excess growth. Startups aren’t immune. After historic levels of venture capital investing during the pandemic, VC investing shrank 35% in Q1 2022 from the prior quarter.

Apple’s contract with some states reveals that hiring, marketing, and management costs could fall on taxpayers.

It’s reportedly on a health tech hiring spree amid data practice controversies—but we think Big Tech’s difficulty in disrupting healthcare and waning consumer trust could hamper its healthcare impact.

The US advertising industry has slowed down hiring dramatically for the last several months, and it lost 2,400 jobs in May despite an overall increase in employment. Big Tech firms reliant on digital advertising revenues like Snap, Twitter, Facebook, and more have also all laid off staff or implemented hiring freezes due to economic anxiety that could lead to a pullback in ad spending.

Meta implemented a rare hiring freeze, and recently shut down its podcasting business after just one year. Netflix laid off several newly hired staff members for its blogging initiative Tudum. Recent statements from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi saying the company will treat hiring as a “privilege” also imply a hiring freeze or slowdown.

The rising number of layoffs and hiring freezes at fintech companies could signal a larger fallout, and employees who left their jobs for an opportunity at a fintech might find themselves unemployed. Incumbent banks and Big Tech firms may realize sustainable cost savings as employees leave, and they may not be willing to rehire.

More layoffs and hiring freezes are likely to come in retail and other sectors. For example, Uber said it is cutting back on spending and will treat hiring as a privilege, while Meta ordered a hiring freeze amid slowing growth. The big takeaway: It has been some time since there was a significant cost to borrowing money.

Employee experience has been improved through a “work from anywhere” hiring policy announced in April—which also doubles as a brand marketing ploy. Customer experience has been enhanced through a number of new innovations. The net result: The company’s gross profit grew from $3.6 billion in 2019 to $4.8 billion in 2021.

Most US companies use AI for hiring and people management, but 39% of executives say no one at their company is responsible for identifying implicit bias in the tech. Meanwhile, 38% report their corporate board isn’t fully aware of how the company uses AI, likely exacerbating blind spots about the risks involved. More like this:. Report: AI in Customer Experience.

Stripe has wavered on offering crypto but has doubled down in recent months, hiring new crypto talent, launching a crypto API tool kit, and partnering with Blockchain.com, FTX, and Twitter. Earlier this month, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said Bitcoin won’t work as a payments network because it’s inefficient and has high energy costs.