Pharmaceutical costs going to continue driving up health care costs:  In April at the National Republican Congressional Committee, President Donald Trump shared that his administration will announce tariffs on pharmaceuticals "very shortly." Increased prices of goods could spell disaster for the industry, as 80% of essential ingredients for prescription drugs are manufactured outside the U.S., according to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  Pair this with the fact that the U.S. currently faces 270 drug shortages, and it's clear that prescription prices are bound to jump — adding insult to injury to the current average annual hike of 4.5%. There is no easy solution, and employers will have to be willing to make changes to their current plan design as well as their overall approach to wellness.  Ultimately, employers will have to focus their efforts on preventing chronic conditions, which are a major driver of prescription drug spend. The CDC estimates that six in 10 Americans have at least one chronic condition. However, up to 80% of chronic conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes as well as 30% of cancer cases are preventable through healthy lifestyle choices and annual check-ups.  Employers will have to center their plan designs around primary and preventive care.   Source: EBN 4/17/25

Did you have a bad experience interviewing for an HR job? Reboot Online analyzed more than 300,000 reviews in the Glassdoor profiles of the 100 best employers to reveal the experiences of jobseekers in their job interviews. It found that 24% of jobseekers who were interviewed for human resources (personnel) roles rated their experience as negative. This placed the HR sector as the second-highest sector with the highest rate of negative experiences, just below the media and communications sector, which had a 26% negative experience rate. Other sectors with the highest rate of negative experiences include legal (24%), product and project management (22%), and marketing (21%). On the other hand, the sector with the highest positive experience rate was transportation with 83%. Other sectors with high positive experience rates include:  Military and protective services (74%), Retail and food services (71%), Healthcare (70%), Skilled labor and manufacturing (69%), Admin (68%), Customer services and support (68%), Consulting (66%), and Education (66%). Meanwhile, the Reboot Online report also revealed that interviews for the arts and design sector were the hardest for jobseekers, with an average difficulty score of 3.4 followed by research and design (3.2) as well as the retail and food services sector (3.1).  Source: HR Director 4/16/25

AI taking over compensation work? In an effort to reduce subjectivity and increase transparency in pay practices, more organizations are using AI to help determine salary, bonuses, and other rewards. According to a new Korn Ferry survey, about one-quarter of firms are using AI for reward applications. Some of the more benign uses include compiling and benchmarking pay data from industry peers and job families to determine salary bands or deploying chatbots to answer employee questions (for instance, about average raise increases in a given department). As AI matures, however, some 40% of leaders anticipate using it to determine base salaries, cash-based incentives, and pay relative to performance, among other things.  According to the survey, more firms are incorporating AI into rewards decisions for a variety of reasons, including a belief that the technology will increase long-term profitability in at least two ways: by relegating certain types of jobs to lower levels of the organization, and by reducing pay for other positions. At the opposite end of the spectrum, workers who have benefited from raises and bonuses related to intangible factors might not want AI making algorithmic decisions either.  Source: Korn Ferry 4/8/25

AI taking over benefits? Almost half (46%) of multinational company headquarters are prioritizing expanding the use of employee-facing technology to support benefits management, including using AI and other advanced technologies to improve benefits navigation and decision-making. That’s according to the latest survey of Global Priorities for Employee Benefits by Towers Watson, a WTW business.  As employees’ physical, mental and financial health remains a top priority, the strategic use of advanced technology and employee data paves the way to creating more personalized and effective benefit strategies, with a particular focus on the use of AI to support data management, employee support and operational efficiency. Additionally, more than half (52%) of multinational HQs consider the use of data-driven insights a high or top priority for enhancing the employee benefits experience. Two thirds (65%) of respondents noted that benefits are important for differentiating the company as an employer to attract, retain and engage staff.  Three quarters (75%) of HQs focus on cost management, with 58% actively involved in benefits cost budgets, with a look to focus spending on the areas that matter most to employees. Companies plan to elevate their benefits, with 79% focused on promoting benefits and raising awareness while engaging employees.  Source: BusinessPlus 4/16/25 

Is your job applicant real? It takes as little as 70 minutes for a researcher with no image manipulation experience to create a fake job candidate that could pass for a real person on a video interview, according to a report published Monday by cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. The vendor said manipulated videos or digital representations produced by machine learning techniques — also known as deepfakes — have been used to dupe companies into hiring malicious actors, including those working for states such as North Korea. Once hired, the actors could steal sensitive data, including customer and client information, experts have said. A survey of hiring managers by Resume Genius, a career website, found that 76% of respondents said they believe that AI made it harder to assess candidate authenticity. Employers can counter suspected fake interviewees by requiring them to pass a hand over their faces or by detecting simple cues, such as rapid head movements, sudden changes in lighting, and delays between lip movements and speech, Palo Alto Networks said. HR teams also may consider tactics such as recording interviews, with consent, for forensic analysis or using a comprehensive identification check process.  Source: HR Dive 4/21/25