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Today's Job News: Massive Job Revisions, AI in Recruiting, and Return to Office Policies

• Pete Newsome

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Today's job news: host Pete Newsome discusses the latest job market revisions announced by the BLS, revealing that nearly a million reported jobs don't actually exist. 

We also examine:
-The Conference Board's latest Employment Trends Index
-The rise of AI in recruiting, as employer adoption has surged by 428% since 2023
-The continuing dominance of job boards in recruiting
-The latest return to office mandates from NBCUniversal and Paramount. Plus, discover a fun fact about the impact of multitasking on IQ. 

News Articles:
1. BLS Employment Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prebmk.nr0.htm
2. Conference Board ETI: https://www.conference-board.org/topics/employment-trends-index/
3. ihire State of Online Recruiting: https://www.ihire.com/resourcecenter/employer/pages/the-state-of-online-recruiting-2025
4. Business Insider NBCUniversal RTO: https://www.businessinsider.com/nbcuniversal-rto-order-four-days-week-memo-paramount-amazon-microsoft-2025-9

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Pete Newsome:

Today's big news is yet another bombshell from the BLS, with the massive job revision that just was announced this morning. With the current employment statistics preliminary benchmark summary that came out, non-farm payroll was reduced by 911,000 jobs for the 12-month period ending March 2025. So nearly a million jobs were reported that don't actually exist. Now. You may recall, the same thing happened last year when this report came out. Now this revision was a reduction of 0.6% versus historically it's about a 0.2% revision, so this is just considerably worse than it typically is, as was last year, and so the net of this is the job market is completely stagnant and we've been given just completely wrong numbers for the past two years to a significant degree. This is almost 1.7 million jobs that have been revised.

Pete Newsome:

The job market is undeniably weak at this point and there's just really no sign that it's getting better. Each report seems to be worse than the one before, so good luck to everyone out there who's in the job market Anyone who's part of it. My business is staffing, so I've been feeling this for a while. My peers around the country have been feeling this. Job seekers everywhere have been feeling this, so this deserves a lot of heat on the BLS and just the federal government as a whole. It's crossed over administrations now, but no jobs of any significance have been added in the past couple of years, and that is now a fact that everyone needs to be aware of and another indication that the job market is losing momentum.

Pete Newsome:

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index fell to 106.41 in August, down from 107.31 in July, which is the lowest level since early 2021. Now this matters because the ETI is a leading indicator for job growth. When it drops, it means hiring has slowed. Mitchell Barnes, who is an economist at the Conference Board, said the ETI peaked two or three years ago and has been falling ever since Now. There's eight components that make up this index and the key factors weighing down the numbers in August included more people reporting that jobs are hard to get, fewer hires for temporary help, industrial production is weakening and job openings are shrinking. So bad job data everywhere right now. We really need some good news soon In our next headline.

Pete Newsome:

According to iHire's 2025 State Online Recruiting Survey, ai is booming, no kidding. The survey shows that employer adoption of AI in recruiting has jumped 428% since 2023, and now 25.9% of employers are using it. That sounds low to me. I would think most employers maybe not all, but certainly more than one out of four would be using AI for hiring right now. I would say 75%, but the survey reported a lower number. It also showed that job boards still rule the day of recruiting, with nearly 69% of employers conducting all or most of their hiring there. I wish there was a better system Everyone does.

Pete Newsome:

I hate the current state of job boards and one-click apply applications, but there doesn't seem to be a better option for most employers. And it also showed that 32% plan to ramp up their usage over the next year. So not great news on that front. From a candidate standpoint, it showed that ghosting and fake jobs remain the major pain points. 59% of candidates say applying and not hearing back is their top challenge, and 39.3% cite fake or ghost job postings. There that is. Again it comes up constantly fake job posts. These job boards really need to get rid of anyone doing that. There should be a penalty where you can never use it again. You need to be kicked off the board entirely if you get caught doing it. It's just really bad state of things on job boards right now. But there is some good news for employees 42.3% of employers promoted or hired internally over the past year, versus only 16.9% in 2024. So that's 150% jump. Look, we will take good news wherever we can get it right now. So if you are employed, the message here is there's a great chance your company that you work for is looking to promote from within. Always a good sign.

Pete Newsome:

And our final headline for today Business Insider reports that NBC Universal is calling employees back to the office four days a week. So here we go with more return to office. Starting January 5th 2026, hybrid staff must show up at least four days a week, with Fridays being the only remote option. Not very flexible, is it? And no surprise, there's a voluntary assistance plan that's being put on the table for any employees who won't comply. Now, this comes just a few days after Paramount rolled out a five-day return to office rule, and they're offering severance to those who won't comply either. In a company-wide email, ceo David Ellison wrote we need to all be rowing in the same direction, and especially when you're dealing with a creative business like ours, that begins with being together in person. He also said we will be offering a severance opt-in program for VPs and below based in Los Angeles and New York who cannot or do not wish to return full time. So it's not a layoff, but certainly seems to be an encouragement for employees to leave, because we know that a lot are unable or unwilling to return to the office once they were given the option to work at home. So good luck to everyone there.

Pete Newsome:

And, in closing, our fun fact for today studies show that multitasking can lower a person's IQ by up to 10 points, which is a similar effect to losing a night's sleep. Wow, okay, I multitask and don't sleep very well. Maybe not, I don't lose a full night, but I wonder how much my IQ is being lowered, because I certainly don't sleep as well as I should and multitask way too much. But that is it for today. Thank you for joining me. Please like, subscribe, share and, as always, offer any comments or feedback that you have. I'd love to hear it. Talk to you soon.