Howdy HR friends!👋

Happy Friday, HR friends! 🙌

Time for the Friday 🖐️ ! Five articles, five takeaways. Five minutes away from the chaos to grab a coffee and get caught up on everything that’s been happening in HR this week!

The world of work is having a rough one. Between mass layoffs delivered via cold morning emails, a hiring market frozen at its lowest point in over a decade, and a workforce sprinting towards AI tools it barely trusts, the signals are hard to ignore.

This week's stories are a reminder that strategy means nothing without humanity. How organizations treat people on the way out says just as much about them as how they bring people in, and right now, a lot of companies have some serious explaining to do.

Today’s edition is presented by HR Technologies UK

Registrations are open for HR Technologies UK, the UK's only event for HR & People professionals that focuses entirely on workplace tech. Free to attend for everyone in HR & Talent, this exhibition and conference tackles the most prominent challenges and opportunities in 2026's world of work.

While the exhibition floor is full of tech providers like Oracle, Workday and Sage, people leaders from brands like Google, Ipsos and Unilever will be sharing insights on the Keynote stages. Register to attend today and join us on the 29th & 30th of April at Excel London for this unmissable event.

👇️ Coming up

In today’s edition

🔪 Oracle axes thousands via early morning email

📉 Big Tech's H-1B visa applications are in freefall

🧊 US hiring just hit its coldest pace since 2011

💔 Epic Games CEO issues grovelling apology after layoff strips cancer patient of life insurance

🤖 Americans are using AI at record rates, but barely trust a word it says

💭The Friday Five

🤖 The AI adoption story nobody in the C-suite wants to talk about

💻 Dell lost 36,000 employees in three years — and barely made a sound. No dramatic layoff announcements, just hiring freezes, RTO pressure, and good old-fashioned attrition doing the heavy lifting. 🔗 Read more [Entrepreneur]

🌎 Nearly two-thirds of businesses say Trump's immigration policies are already hitting them where it hurts. Staffing shortages are biting hardest in tech and hospitality, with smaller firms least able to absorb the shock. 🔗 Read more [HR Brew]

💰 SharkNinja is handing out $1 million for employees to experiment with AI, no permission needed. The "Jailbreak" challenge is open to every function and region, with a $100K prize for the best application of the year. 🔗 Read more [The HR Digest]

🕵️ A Disney exec says HR secretly pumped his executive coach for information, then cut his bonus when he complained. The lawsuit alleges racial discrimination, retaliation, and a pretty spectacular breach of trust. 🔗 Read more [HR Dive]

⛪ A Sam's Club cashier says supervisors literally laughed when she reported faith-based harassment — and fired her exactly one year after she was hired. The suit claims the company never investigated and failed to follow its own disciplinary process. 🔗 Read more [HCA Mag]

For easy reading..

Today’s edition is presented by SelectSoftware Reviews

HR Webinars Coming Up:

• Apr 14th | Scaling HR: Moving off Spreadsheets, PEOs, and Wing-It PeopleOps as Your Company Grows’

• Apr 23rd | Retention Is the New Recruitment: Leading Through the Low-Fire, Low-Hire Era

• Apr 29th | Candidate Assessments for Technical Recruiting: AI Best Practices, Risks, and Expert Tips

P.S. Register now and join live to get the chance to win exciting giveaways! 

That’s it for today.

Thanks for reading to the end and we hope today’s edition helped saved you a few hours in scouring the web for the latest news! 🧠

We know you’re super busy and as ever, we really appreciate you saving some room for us in your inbox 😀

Have a great weekend!