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Glassdoor Economic Research has released its Worklife Trends report for 2026. A key theme highlighted throughout is the growing disconnect between workers and their leaders. A notable contributing factor is that smaller, regular layoffswhich the report dubs as “forever layoffs”are becoming more common than less frequent mass layoffs. Rolling layoffs are among several reasons why many employees feel anxious and less secure in the workplace. Let’s review the report findings. ‘Forever layoffs’ are becoming the norm Layoffs are back to pre-pandemic levels. And smaller, more frequent job cuts are now common. Glassdoor refers to these mini, rolling layoffs as “forever layoffs.” Glassdoor reviewed Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data from 2015 to August 2025. After a layoff spike in spring 2020 and historically low layoff levels in 2021 and 2022, the number of full-time workers laid off each month has crept back up to pre-pandemic levels: The average number of workers that were laid off or discharged each month from 2015 to 2019 was around 1.8 million. Meanwhile, around 1.7 million workers were laid off or discharged in August 2025. Glassdoor also examined Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act layoff notifications (excluding notices for company closings) for further insight. The WARN Act is a federal law that requires most employers with 100 or more workers to provide advance notice before a plant closing or mass layoff. Layoffs affecting fewer than 50 people accounted for 38% of WARN notices in 2015. 51% of layoffs affected fewer than 50 people in 2025. It’s worth noting, however, that the WARN Act doesn’t require filings for layoffs of fewer than 50 workers. Filings may not give a complete picture of the number of smaller layoffs. Glassdoor reviews give insight into how workers feel Company layoffs impact employee morale and job satisfaction. Many workers are feeling less secure in their jobs. “Rolling layoffs may give companies a way to reduce headcount without making headlines, but they create cultures of anxiety, insecurity, and resentment at companies,” the report says. Glassdoor examined 3.3 million Glassdoor reviews from current employees working remote and hybrid roles. The following related terms have surged in Glassdoor reviews in the last year: Misaligned (149%) Miscommunication (25%) Hypocrisy (18%) Distrust (26%) Industries with a noticeable decline in trust in leadership include management and consulting, media and telecommunication, and technology. Remote workers feel dissatisfied as confidence in leadership declines Overall ratings are falling for employees who use the words “remote” or “hybrid” when listing workplace pros. Here are some key findings: Remote employees are seeing fewer career opportunities. The average career opportunity ratings on Glassdoor have fallen from 4.1 in 2020 to 3.5 in 2025. Confidence in senior leadership is weakening. Ratings of senior leadership are now well below pandemic levels. For reviews that mention senior leadership or management, the share of reviews mentioning “disconnect” increased by 24% from 2024 to 2025. Many workers still give high ratings for work-life balance. Work-life balance ratings are still higher for workers who list hybrid or remote work as a pro, but ratings have declined since 2020. More workers are feeling more pressure to RTO Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have pushed workers back into the office. But thats not the only reason more employees are likely to return to in-person work in 2026. Fewer opportunities for career growth also contribute to job dissatisfaction. Many employers are prioritizing in-person workers for promotions and career opportunities. Some remote and hybrid workers may feel pressure to trade in flexibility for more access to career advancement opportunities. Workers feeling the need to take whatever job offer comes their way, and AI adoption are other factors that contribute to the disconnect between employees and leaders. Average early-career earnings are rising Heres one positive trend highlighted by the report: Early-career workers are on track to surpass pre-pandemic earnings levels in 2026. Real wage growth was down 4.1% for early-career workers from 2020 to 2022. But earnings started recovering in 2023 and are expected to surpass 2020 levels next year.
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E-Commerce
When it comes to agentic artificial intelligence, the fear of missing out factor is clear. Organizations are plopping down agents, in part, because thats what everyone else seems to be doing. But FOMO is not a business strategy. To make agentic AI work, business leaders need to ignore the hype and concentrate on establishing exactly what agents can do for them, how, and at what cost. Our own work has proved that AI agents, which independently plan and execute complex multistep tasks, can deliver substantial value by accelerating timelines and reducing costs. And that is just the start. The ever-improving ability of AI agents to work with people to plan, communicate, and learn, could evolve into a genuine paradigm shift in how business is done. Unclear business value But enthusiasm does not always translate into impact, something that many businesses are beginning to recognize. According to one study, 40% of agentic AI projects could be canceled by the end of 2027 due to unclear business value and escalating costs. In recent research, McKinsey studied dozens of agentic AI initiatives, including 50 in which we were directly involved. With the wisdom of hindsight, weve identified three critical factors in agentic AI success. 1. Start with workflows, not agents Agentic transformations are more likely to succeed when they focus on integrating agents into reimagined workflows, rather than tacking agents onto processes designed for another technological era. And the corollary is also true: even the most powerful AI agent will underperform if it is tethered to faulty and inefficient workflows. Already, agents are being successfully deployed in multi-step, dynamic workflows like IT help desks, software development, and customer service. The boldest leaders are also successfully deploying agents to frontier use cases. For example, an alternative legal services provider found substantial efficiency gains when it carefully modernized its contract review process. Every time a lawyer made a change in the document editor, it was logged, categorized, and fed back into the agents logic and knowledge base. In designing the agentic workflow, the team identified where, when, and how to integrate human input. Agents highlighted edge cases and anomalies for people to review. Over time, the agents were able to codify new expertise and provide more sophisticated legal reasoning, but it was up to the lawyers to sign off on critical decisions. 2. Stop the slop Many enthusiastic early adopters built agents whose outputs have become known as slopthat is, work that may be done quickly but then requires considerable effort to correct. This is annoying. Worse, it breeds distrust in the agents and in the idea of transformation more generally. To do better, companies should invest in agents just as systematically as they do in people, with managers, job descriptions, training, monitoring, and continuous development goals. 3. To support AI agents, engage the workforce It should be humans who onboard, train, and evaluate agents on an ongoing basis: launch and leave is not good enough. As agents begin to accomplish more, roles will shift. Leaders will need to train employees in a new human-agent hybrid operating model, including skills such as building and deploying agents effectively, training them, setting tasks for them, tracking and correcting their work, and stringing them together to perform more complex tasks. The essential principle is that agentic AI needs to work with, not against, time-honored business priorities like productivity and teamwork. The question, then, is not whether to deploy agents, as with any other technology, it is when can they help to solve real-world problems and create value? And the answer is: not always. For tasks related to parsing lengthy documents, generative AI applications such as chatbots are probably the better option. For highly structured or automated tasks like data entry, rules-based approachesif x, then ycan be more efficient. And high-stakes decisions with little room for error are the domain of leaders and managers. Yes, agentic AI could be a once-in-a-generation opportunitythus the FOMO effect. Success will come not from enthusiasm, however, but from a hard-headed analysis of how thistool can be used wiselyfor the right task, at the right time.
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E-Commerce
The early darkness in most of the U.S. means that fall has set in. That also means its officially holiday shopping season. With the economic impact of President Trumps ever-fluctuating tariffs an open question, theres an opportunity for shoppers to make their spending meaningful, which opens up a lane for companies that are offering something other than the e-commerce onslaught of nearly identical products that populate sites like Amazon and Walmart. What the Amazons and even Etsys of the world are currently missing is the sense of curation that defines Uncommon Goods, an online shop stocked with exclusive, offbeat items sourced from independent artisans. Its a cheat code for gift giversmostly signals, very little noise. Each click is a potential epiphany, connecting me to, say, smartphone-controlled paper airplanes for my nephew, or wooden wall art shaped like a soundwave from my wifes favorite song. In the age of the Everything Store, its a Just the Right Thing Store. [Screenshot: Uncommon Goods] The remarkability of Uncommon Goodss inventory has helped grow the shops revenue at an average annual rate of 25% from 2000 to 2020; it has received more than a million orders per year for the past five years. That je ne sais quoi has often caught the attention of Wirecutter, the New York Timess product recommendation vertical, which has highlighted many of its wares. “As gift experts, we spend most of our time scouring the internet, visiting brick-and-mortar shops, and attending trade shows in search of gifts that sit right at the edge of practical and whimsical, with standout quality and value, says Hannah Morrill, Wirecutters gifts editor. Weve noticed that Uncommon Goods tends to prioritize unique products from small makers that we havent seen beforethats pretty rare from a large-scale online retailer.” Of course, as relatively effortless as Uncommon Goods might make holiday shopping, its leadership says that the sites ever-changing, reliably surprising inventory is the culmination of a tremendous amount of work. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] An Uncommon Origin With shopping, a little lore can go a long waymaking some goods seem even better. When an Uncommon Goods artisan has an interesting backstory, those details often make their way into the sites marketing copy. Shoppers are less likely to encounter the sites own origin story. Dave Bolotsky [Photo: Uncommon Goods] Founder and CEO Dave Bolotsky started his career in the mid-80s as an analyst at investment bank First Boston. By 1999, hed become a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he was due to receive $10 million in stock when the bank went public. Instead, he walked away from the job, leaving that entire imminent windfall on the table. It was just what he felt he had to do. I was not bored once in my 14 years on Wall Street, but it felt soulless, Bolotsky tells Fast Company. I felt like I was helping the wheels of capitalism spin faster, but not necessarily in a better direction. Bolotsky says he got the idea for Uncommon Goods after visiting a Smithsonian Institution craft show. Walking along rows of vendors hawking handcrafted items, he observed how shoppers responded to the personal artisan touch. It raised their eyebrows and spirits as much as it did their inclination to spend money. The only problem was the rarity of such opportunities. Back then, makers had to act as traveling salespeople, schlepping from one regional show to another. It was all too easy to miss them. The insight Bolotsky had was that if he could take a craft show product, put it online, and sell it 24/7, it might be a huge evolutionary leap forward for retailing, and for artisans in particular. The challenge? Online shoppers proved stubbornly hesitant. It was the internets Wild West era, and trusting ones credit card details to an online retailer was still considered fraught. When Bolotsky and his team would scout makers at trade shows, it took a lot just to persuade them that the internet was not inherently evil. He refused to buckle, though, and kept the ship afloat through several rocky, profit-free years. The outlook brightened only after Amazon terraformed the space, Bolotsky admits grudgingly. As much as I don’t like them as a competitor, I do admire what they’ve done, he says. Amazon Prime was huge in driving online shopping. And to an extent, we ride their coattails. One glaring difference between the two, though, is that Amazon has an estimated 300 million to 600 million items for sale at any given moment, while Uncommon Goods hovers around 5,000. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] What uncommon goodness actually looks like The Uncommon Goods site procures roughly 80% of its products through its buying team, while an in-house product development team fills in the remaining 20%, largely through partnerships with a roster of product makers it has worked with before. Although Uncommon Goods doesnt chase trends, it often plays in the same sandbox as whatever is popping off in pop culture. When BookTok first exploded, for instance, the product development team rolled out a piece of functional nightstand decor dubbed the Book Nook reading valet, while the buying team sought repurposed book tulipspaper flowers in a paper vase, both created with upcycled books. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] John Berweiler, head of the sites buying team, says there are a few criteria for what makes a product ready for the site. True to form, it has to be uncommon (ideally something that can join the 40% of the site’s exclusive inventory) and it has to be useful, beautiful, or handmade, but preferably all three. As for the other variables, well, as a SCOTUS justice once famously said of pornography: You know it when you see it. Our customers want to win the gift competition, Berweiler says. For them, it’s the why behind the product. Does it make them smile? Does it make them reminisce about a moment or spark a feeling? That wow factor sets us apart from a frame they might buy at Pottery Barn. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] From idea to hit product Whenever a member of the buying team comes across a promising item they request a sample. Every Tuesday afternoon, the team gathers for a sample meeting that serves as an Americas Got Talent-like revue, in which each item competes for potential inclusion in the shop. If theres a winner, or multiple winners, a gauntlet of other considerations follows, spanning from price to exclusivity, and whether the maker has a backstory worth featuring on the site. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] Some products developed in-house come out of brainstorming sessions. Bolotsky himself is responsible for more than a few, including a line of interactive mugs with QR codes on them. Other Uncommon Goods items are collaborations between the buyers, product development, and various makers. Last year, for instance, the buying team was looking for new ideas for dining and drinking items, right as limoncello surged back into fashion, and landed on making dedicated limoncello glasses. The team reached out to potter Maggy Ames, who ended up producing an adorable set of ceramic tumblers with grippy thumb divots and elegant hand-painted lemons. Though the artist was initially skeptical, the limoncello cups blew up. They sold so well that she couldnt keep up with demand. Thats when the product development team stepped in to scale production on the cups, working closely with the original maker to ensure she was comfortable with how the new product turned out. Through a manufacturer in Thailand, the cups are now made on a larger scale, but can still be hand-paintedkeeping their artisan aura alive. Its a microcosm of how the company expanded from Bolotskys apartment to an operation with 144 year-round employees, all while elevating makers and maintaining the core promise. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] Gift-giving in the time of tariffs Although the buying team is already strategizing for Christmas 2026, first the company will have to get through this years holidays, which promise to be more challenging than usual. The presidents chaotic and aggressive approach to tariffs throughout 2025 has kept American retailers who work in the global marketplace in a bind. Bolotsky isnt especially worried, though. About half of the products Uncommon Goods sells are made domestically, he says, and the rest are spread throughout 10 countries, keeping the company less dependent on Chinese-made products than many of its competitors. For the imported products, Uncommon Goods has been negotiating with vendors to meet at least halfway on the pricing or margin hit the company is poised to take. In some cases, Uncommon Goods ended up sourcing products elsewhere; in others, it has taken selected price hikes. My biggest concern is actually that, because we sell discretionary products, and because there will likely be greater inflation across the board this holiday season, people may have less discretionary money to spend on gifts that we sell, Bolotsky says. If people do end up having less money to spend on gifts this year, they may indeed have to be more discerning about what they buy. Perhaps enough of them will gravitate toward a shop thats more discerning about what it sells.
Category:
E-Commerce
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