Going PRO Talent fund cut by House budget bill: The Michigan House of Representatives has adopted a very aggressive budget that makes dramatic cuts in several programs to provide increased resources for roads, bridges, and state infrastructure. Among the cuts is the elimination of the Going PRO Talent Fund, a training grant program that manufacturers use to develop future skilled employees who will move manufacturing to the next level. According to the Michigan Manufacturers Association (MMA), losing these grants will make it difficult for manufacturers to grow their workforce, attract new investments in the state, or make the most of the opportunities to upskill their employees to improve their careers and the economic vitality of Michigan’s manufacturing base.

AI may be a threat to entry level jobs: Artificial intelligence may pose a significant threat to millions of students who are getting ready to graduate this year, according to LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman.  In an article written for the New York Times, Raman likened today's situation to that of the decline of the manufacturing sector in the 1980s, which saw a steep fall. Raman argued that office workers are now in a similar kind of situation amid technological and economic disruption.  “Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption,” he wrote.  The bottom rung of the career ladder, which is the entry-level employees, will be the first to break. The LinkedIn executive wrote that artificial intelligence poses a real threat to a number of entry-level jobs that serve as the steppingstone for Gen Z workers to launch their careers. In one of LinkedIn's recent surveys, over 3,000 executives at the vice president level or higher agreed that AI will eventually replace some of the mundane tasks that are typically done by entry-level workers.  Source: Livemint.com 5/26/25

Work conditions tied to mental health: Work can either fuel employee well-being or become a source of strain for employees already stressed out by economic volatility and political tension, according to a May 12 survey of employee mental health by Inmar Intelligence.  Of the 1,000 U.S. full- and part-time employees who responded to the May 12 survey, 34% said their job positively impacts their mental health, while 33% reported a negative impact, Inmar found. “This near-even split reinforces the importance of thoughtful leadership and inclusive workplace design to support the full spectrum of employee needs,” the business technology firm stated in a May 29 post.  Job security (45%), reasonable workload (40%), and supportive management (40%), are the top factors employees cited as having a positive impact on their mental health at work, the survey found. Flexible work options (39%) and a healthy work culture (38%) followed closely behind.  Conversely, employees cited poor communication (32%), excessive or unclear workload (30%), and a toxic or stressful culture (29%) as key negative factors. They were followed by lack of recognition (25%) and unsupportive management (24%).  These findings “reinforce that mental health and job conditions are deeply intertwined,” Inmar pointed out in the post.  Source: HR Dive 6/5/25

Layoffs not conducted face to face: According to a survey of more than 1,000 recently laid-off workers by career website Zety, the workplace is handling worker separations with all the warmth of a parking ticket. More than half were delivered through email (29%) or a phone call (28%), while only 30% involved face-to-face conversations – meaning that HR has largely digitized one of the most consequential moments in a person’s life. Even worse, 6% of workers discovered their fate through office gossip, 5% learned by way of a video call, and 2% only realized they’d been terminated when their access to Slack and email was cut off.  The research reveals that 21% of workers were completely blindsided by their layoffs, even though 89% felt the process was handled fairly overall. That disconnect suggests that while employees tend to understand the reasoning behind layoffs, they think they should be handled with more care. When asked what would have improved their experiences, 65% wanted better severance packages, while 64% sought career support and outplacement services, 49% desired improved communication from leadership and 35% wanted more advance notice.  Source: Worklife 6/19/25

DEI jobs drying up: The anti-DEI "political climate" has been slowly bubbling up for years – even before President Trump was re-elected and set things to a hard boil by immediately signing executive orders banning what he calls "illegal DEI." Now scores of employers are in all-out retreat from anything adjacent to the word "diversity" – including the experienced DEI specialists who were once in high demand. This retreat is decimating the job market for people. Since early 2023, U.S. employers have eliminated more than 2,600 jobs with words including "diversity" or "DEI" in the titles or descriptions, according to a data analysis conducted for NPR by the workforce analytics firm Revelio Labs. That accounts for about 13% of the DEI-related jobs that existed in early 2023, at the peak of the hiring boom. Now that boom has shifted firmly into reverse. However superficial some of these promises turned out to be, big companies spent a lot of money on them and hired thousands to implement them. By early 2023, U.S. companies employed more than 20,000 people focused on DEI. That was more than double the number of such jobs five years earlier, according to Revelio Labs' analysis of 8.8 million employers.  Source: NPR 5/27/25

No tax on tips preliminary lists are out: The Treasury Department this week released a “preliminary list” of occupations that may be entitled to claim the “no tax on tips” deduction. As a reminder, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) provides an above-the-line tax deduction for “qualified tips.” To qualify for the deduction, the tips must (among other conditions) be received by an individual engaged in an occupation that “customarily and regularly received tips” on or before December 31, 2024. The OBBBA requires the Treasury secretary to publish an official list of qualifying occupations by October 2, 2025. Notably, the Treasury Department’s preliminary list of occupations that “customarily and regularly received tips” includes many occupations that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has long interpreted as not customarily and regularly receiving tips, such as dishwashers and cooks. This is an important difference. The DOL has construed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to prohibit employers from applying a “tip credit” to satisfy the minimum wage obligation for employees who are not engaged in an occupation that customarily and regularly receives tips. Further, when an employer does take a tip credit, only employees who also “customarily and regularly receive tips” can participate in a mandatory tip pool.  The list is broader than expected and until the final list is out, it is unclear whether the preliminary list will be final.  Source: Littler 9/3/25