DOL leaders along with EEOC Commissioner confirmed: Jonathan Berry was confirmed Solicitor of Labor.  Berry was the lead writer of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 labor and employment chapter and was a Managing Partner at Boyden Gray PLLC.  Andrew Rogers was confirmed as Wage and Hour Administrator, who has been serving as acting general counsel at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. During the first Trump administration, Rogers served as a senior adviser at the Wage and Hour Division, and chief counsel and chief of staff to the EEOC commissioner. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health David Keeling was confirmed. Keeling is Amazon’s former director of road and transportation safety, a job he left in mid-2023 to do consulting. He also spent about 36 years working for the United Parcel Service in several regional safety manager and director roles before becoming its vice president of global health and safety. Brittany Panuccio was confirmed as Commissioner to EEOC. Panuccio most recently served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Appellate Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she handles both civil and criminal appeals in the 11th Circuit. Her background includes clerkships with federal appellate judges and prior service at the U.S. Department of Education, where she co-authored the 2018 Title IX Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and advised senior leadership.

E-Verify is back up and running: Employers who participate in E-Verify must create an E-Verify case by Tuesday, Oct. 14 for each employee hired while E-Verify was not available. You must use the hire date from the employee’s Form I 9 when creating the E-Verify case. If you could not create an E-Verify case by the third business day after the employee began work for pay because E-Verify was unavailable, E-Verify will prompt you during case creation to provide a reason for the delay. Select “Other” from the “Select a Reason for Delay” drop-down menu and enter “E-Verify not Available” as the specific reason in the “Reason for Delay” text box. The days E-Verify was unavailable will not count toward the three business days employers usually have to create a case in E-Verify. During E Verify’s unavailability, federal contractors could not enroll or use E-Verify as required by the E-Verify federal contractor rule. As a result, any calendar day when E-Verify was unavailable will not count toward any of the federal contractor deadlines. Please contact the contracting officer, as necessary, for more information on federal contractor responsibilities.

What are the best benefits to deal with employee stress? Employees are stressed out and need a break, but they're not taking advantage of available time off. Benefit managers can help them make the switch from time-off trepidation to triumph. Digital weight management and wellness solution Wondr Health's recent survey found that nearly one fourth of respondents listed time off for vacation and mental health days, followed by flexible or remote work schedules, as the top ways they shed stress. But separate data from fintech platform Sorbet shows that 62% of employees don't use all of their PTO, indicating that while they know what they need, something is keeping them from stepping away. "We have this weird view that it's almost irresponsible or a break we don't deserve when we take a real vacation," says Dr. Tim Church, Wondr's chief medical officer He also points out that many employees also avoid taking time off because of the massive catch-up they have to play upon return. Team policies that allow them time to focus on emails and other tasks can make being away less concerning and getting up to speed much quicker.  Source: EBN 9/23/25

As expected, younger workers found to be disproportionally hit negatively by AI: Stanford University has published a first-of-its-kind study  that reveals “the AI revolution” is already beginning to have a “significant and disproportionate impact on entry-level workers in the U.S. labor market,” especially those ages 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed professions like software engineering and customer service. The research, led by Erik Brynjolfsson, a top economist and AI thought leader of sorts, analyzed high-frequency payroll records from millions of American workers, generated by ADP, the largest payroll software firm in the U.S. The analysis revealed a 13% relative decline in employment for early-career workers in the most AI-exposed jobs since the widespread adoption of generative-AI tools, “even after controlling for firm-level shocks.” In contrast, employment for older, more experienced workers in the same occupations has remained stable or grown. The report shows that the largest declines are concentrated among young, entry-level workers – those whose skills are most easily replaced by AI systems automating routine, codified tasks. The report says experience and tacit knowledge are becoming crucial buffers against displacement as AI tools excel at replacing book learning over job-specific, hard-to-codify skills.  Source: Fortune 8/26/25

Would you prefer an AI manager? As more companies integrate artificial intelligence tools, workplace dynamics and culture appear to be shifting, according to an Aug. 12 report from CalypsoAI, an AI security provider. For instance, 45% of workers said they trust AI more than their co-workers, and 38% said they would rather have an AI manager than a person. In addition, 34% said they’d quit if their employer banned AI. In a survey of 1,000 U.S. office workers, 87% said their employer has an AI policy, but 52% would be willing to break it if AI makes their job easier. Beyond that, 28% have used AI to access sensitive data, and 28% have also submitted proprietary company data to AI to complete a task. Among C-suite executives, half said they’d prefer AI managers over humans. At the same time, 34% aren’t sure they can tell the difference between an AI agent and a human employee, and 38% don’t know what an AI agent is.  Among entry-level workers, 37% said they wouldn’t feel guilty for violating their company’s AI policy. Since 21% said their company’s AI rules aren’t clear, they “just do what works,” the report found. Source: HR Dive 8/19/25