CEO Hiring Plans for 2026 Are In & The Results Are Complicated
Sales expectations hit 126, 81% of CEOs expect revenue to increase. Capital spending jumped 12 points to 91, with 52% planning to invest more. Those are confident numbers from the people running some of the country’s largest companies.
Then there’s the employment subindex, which came in at exactly 50, the neutral line between growth and contraction. That means 32% of CEOs plan to add workers over the next six months, 32% plan to cut, and 36% plan no change. Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten flagged it directly, calling the employment picture “a concern, with as many CEOs planning to reduce employment as increase it.”
Atlassian Cut 1,600 Jobs to Fund AI. Its Stock Went Up.
Atlassian, the company behind Jira and Confluence, announced it’s laying off approximately 1,600 employees, about 10% of its global workforce. The cuts are 40% in North America, 30% in Australia, and 16% in India, with restructuring costs estimated between $225 and $236 million in severance and facility charges.
The stated reason: reallocating resources toward AI and enterprise sales. CEO Mike Cannon-Brooks told employees the company’s approach is not “AI replaces people,” while simultaneously cutting 1,600 positions to fund AI investment. Atlassian’s stock rose 2% on the news.
That market reaction is worth sitting with. Companies have learned that announcing AI-driven cuts moves the stock price. That’s a feedback loop with real consequences, and it isn’t going away anytime soon.
There’s an additional wrinkle here. Atlassian’s stock had already fallen more than 60% over the past year, partly because investors fear AI agents will eventually replace the kind of workflow tools Atlassian makes. So the company is cutting jobs to invest in the very technology threatening its core products. Some are calling this the “SaaS apocalypse.” Atlassian isn’t alone; Block cut 4,000 jobs recently and WiseTech cut 2,000.
Half of College Graduates Are Underemployed. A New SHRM Report Says the Pipeline Is Broken.
SHRM released a white paper this week on the gap between what schools produce and what employers actually need. Three in four organizations report difficulty finding candidates with the right skills. 30% specifically cite a lack of “power skills”: communication, problem-solving, and adaptability. SHRM CEO Johnny Taylor told Congress recently that the education-to-employment pipeline is “leaky, broken, and busted.”
The underemployment data is hard to ignore. 52% of college graduates are underemployed within a year of finishing school. 45% are still underemployed a decade later. Meanwhile, 26.5% of unemployed workers can’t match a job posting in their field because openings simply don’t exist there, while 70% of employers simultaneously report struggling to fill roles.
Both things are true at once, which tells you the problem isn’t about volume. It’s about alignment.
Some employers are responding. 27% have dropped degree requirements entirely. Only 22% of organizations currently offer apprenticeship programs, but 82% of those that do say they’re effective at addressing talent shortages. When training is specific and tied to real work, it works. For HR teams and hiring managers trying to close this gap, the SHRM report is a useful benchmark and a signal that rethinking how you screen and develop talent is no longer optional.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Frequently Asked Questions
In the Business Roundtable survey, 50 is the neutral midpoint; it means an equal share of CEOs plan to increase headcount as they plan to reduce it. Values above 50 signal expansion; below 50 signals contraction. Landing at exactly 50 while sales and capital spending are both in expansion territory is what makes this quarter’s numbers notable.
AI adoption is allowing companies to handle more output with fewer people, particularly in software and knowledge work. Markets have also begun rewarding workforce reductions when framed as strategic reinvestment, creating a financial incentive for cuts even when revenue is strong.
According to SHRM’s latest research, 52% of college graduates are underemployed within one year of finishing school, and 45% remain underemployed a decade after graduating, meaning they’re working in roles that don’t require the degree they earned.
A growing number already are; 27% of companies in the SHRM report have removed degree requirements from certain roles. Credentials don’t reliably predict job performance, and blanket requirements can screen out capable candidates. The smarter approach for most hiring managers is to evaluate requirements role by role.
View Full Transcript
Business Roundtable Q1 2026: When the economy grows, but hiring doesn’t follow
Welcome back to Cornering the Job Market. Today’s headlines include a new report from Sherm that shows more than half of all college grads are underemployed within a year of finishing school, and another tech company has cut jobs in the name of AI. I’ll get into all of that, but first, 169 of America’s top CEOs just told us their hiring plans for the next six months. This morning, Business Roundtable released its Q1 2026 CEO Economic Outlook survey. The overall confidence index was great. It rose nine points to 89, which is well above the long-term historical average of 83. But the hiring number is the one that matters here. The employment sub-index came in at exactly 50.
32% of CEOs plan to add workers, 32% plan to cut, and 36% plan no change at all. It sounds like Goldilocks, right? That’s a dead even split, which is not what we need to see right now, because these are some of America’s biggest companies, and a third of them are planning to shrink. I mean, it’s great that some are growing, but not if an equal number aren’t or specifically are heading in the wrong direction. Let’s let’s be honest, neutral is not good news right now, especially when everything else in their businesses are pointing up. Sales expectations hit 126, capital spending jumped 12 points. So these are companies who are saying we’re gonna sell more, our revenue is gonna be good, we’re gonna spend more, but we’re not we’re just not gonna hire people to do it.
Sounds like a trend, doesn’t it? We’ve been seeing that a lot. Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolton called the employment picture a concern, noting that as many CEOs plan to reduce headcount as increase it. Now, this is just the story of the 2026 job market. Companies growing, they’re not adding workers. So if you’re looking for a job right now, yeah, the economy might look fine on paper. GDP is positive, corporate confidence is up, spending is strong, but the hiring isn’t following, and that’s uh a concern. It’s a disconnect, quite frankly, between uh when you have a healthy uh economy but a flat labor market, ultimately the economy’s gonna start to decline to a significant degree. We need hiring to pick up. So this survey really puts it in clear terms. Everything you’re you’re seeing and feeling is real right now because when there’s the CEOs are saying the hiring plans aren’t there, well, you just know that they’re not.
Atlassian’s 1,600 layoffs, the SaaS apocalypse, and why the stock went up
And speaking of companies investing in everything except people, Atlassian, who’s the company behind JIRA and Confluence, just announced that it’s cutting 1,600 jobs, which is 10% of its entire workforce. And the reason, I bet you can guess it, yeah, uh, you’re right. If you did, the company says it’s shifting resources toward AI and enterprise sales. 40% of the cuts will be in North America, 30% in Australia, and 16% in India. And the restructuring is going to cost them somewhere between $225 million and $236 million in severance and office space charges. CEO Mike Cannon Brooks told employees in a memo our approach is not AI replaces people, but it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas.
What he’s essentially saying is it’s not replacing people, but we’re getting rid of 1,600 people so we can fund AI more. Is it just me, or does that sound exactly like it’s AI replacing people? Um this their stock went up 2% on the news, so that’s another trend that we’ve seen. Companies in outcuts, they claim it’s due to AI, their stock increases. We’d be crazy not to think that that’s going to continue, right? The CEOs are incented by stock increases, and they know they’re learning quickly that if they announce it’s due to AI, their stock will go up. What do you think is going to happen? And it maybe it was just stopping some bleeding because their stock had dropped more than 60% over the past year, uh, because ironically, investors worry AI agents could replace the kind of tools that they make. So what what a mess.
There’s a there’s a phrase that I’ve just seen uh for this that some are referring to it as SAS Apocalypse. SAS apocalypse? SAS apocalypse? SAS Apocalypse, I’m not really sure how you should pronounce it, but that’s a trend that we’re seeing for sure. Lassiean’s not alone. Of course, Block just cut 4,000 jobs two weeks ago. WiseTech cut 2,000. So if you work in software technology, you have to be paying close attention to all of this. Not in the future, but right now. We are seeing new opportunities, but we’re also seeing companies take action. They’re saying it’s AI. It doesn’t matter whether that’s 100% accurate or not, because the steps that they’re taking are what’s affecting the job market, what’s affecting individuals. So everyone needs to be paying attention to this. And I’ll just say, as I often do, if you’re not part of the AI adoption, well, you’re probably gonna be a victim of it. So get involved, make sure you are on the leading edge of whatever curve your particular company is on. So that is what’s going on there at Alassian.
SHRM’s Education-to-Employment Report: The pipeline isn’t leaking, it’s broken
The next story for today is SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, just released what I’ll call a major policy report on the gap between what schools produce and what employers actually need. And the numbers are, well, they’re curious at best or disturbing, uh, worse. 70% of employers report ongoing difficulty-filling jobs. As I say every time I see that as a staffing company owner, that cuts deep for me because I don’t see that problem with my clients. I don’t see that problem in uh anything I have first-hand perspective on. I would tell you if we’re getting jobs that we can’t fill, but that is not the case. Now, granted, I know there’s a few areas where they’re where the supply does not meet the demand.
But when I see a number like this, 70% of employers say they are having difficulty filling jobs. I think that’s a you problem for the employers. Are you not paying enough? Are your expectations unrealistic? It’s not because the job market doesn’t have plenty of qualified workers. We know that. So there’s definitely a disconnect there. And I wish that I could speak directly to the 70% and hear from them and dig into the details of why they’re not filling jobs because I could guarantee, almost guarantee, that I could solve it for them with very few exceptions, whether it’s because my company could help or refer them to it down a different path. Something’s amiss there. I just wish I knew what it was. Now, 26.5% of unemployed workers uh can’t be matched to a job posting uh in the field that they work in because there aren’t enough openings in that area.
So that alone is is a disconnect, right? This isn’t me just saying it. These are workers saying, hey, there aren’t jobs that match what I do, so why are 70% of employers struggling? Now, there’s a skills gap that a lot of companies are saying that 28% of the companies in the survey say their full-time roles now require entirely new skill sets. So that’s going on right now, too. As a worker, you’re obligated to stay current. That that is for sure. 47% of those that make up the 28% say their existing jobs have be have been redesigned around new capabilities. Um that that’s happening right now. The world’s changing rapidly. I know I always tend to go back to AI, but you can’t ignore it. I mean, the companies are saying it. Atlassian just said it in a way. This is what is going on here, too, when they’re talking about things changing. It seems that Sherm’s a little hesitant to directly say it’s AI, but come on, what else is it going to be?
I mean, we have to be have our eyes open here. The CEO of Sherm, Johnny Taylor, told Congress recently that the education to employment pipeline is leaky, broken, and busted. Well, yeah, that I mean that’s that’s a good phrase for this. Um the the education system isn’t preparing people for what’s actually out in the world. That’s not new. That’s been trending for a while. It’s just getting the right exposure now. And now, who knows how quickly the education system can adapt. I have my doubts to say the least. It is a big ship that turns very slowly, if at all. But more data like this is needed to show, to shine the light on this and to say this is a real problem. Because right now, 52% of college grads are underemployed within a year of graduating, as I said earlier.
And 45% are still underemployed a decade later. That is a staggering number when you stop and think about it. Nearly half of people, of all people who finished college 10 years ago, aren’t working at a job that requires their degree. And again, this isn’t new. I I’ve been I’ve been experiencing this firsthand for years. I’ve been out of school for goodness, over 30 years now. And my political science degree that no one told me not to get at the time was effectively worthless when I graduated, other than checking a box that I had a bachelor’s degree, and that is not how the world works anymore. That was a thing 30 plus years ago, maybe even 15 years ago, where just having a college degree was enough. But now we should be questioning whether the cost of that education, the time spent getting it, is worth whatever’s going to be on the other side of it, and not let these kids, because they are kids largely doing it, who don’t really understand what will be on the other side of it, not let them make bad decisions.
No one’s stopping them, not high school guidance counselors, not the college counselors and the career centers who love to talk about all the wonderful things they do. That’s just not reality. And that’s what data like this shows us. Also, 61% of U.S. workers have never done an internship. Only 43% of students say their college career services were helpful. Okay, yes. Yep. Yeah, I’m surprised it’s even that high. I really am, because from what I’ve seen, it’s just not there. That help is not there, other than for a few select majors where employers are lining up to get them. Again, it is all supply and demand. And here is the bottom line. And I would debate anyone, anywhere, at any time who wants to challenge this. There is no demand for generic degrees. It doesn’t exist. Not in this market. I doubt it will ever come back. And so we need to stop and not let these kids so look, this isn’t going to happen at a macro level, not anytime soon.
These educational institutions are glad to take your money, but kids need more guidance with this. Young people who are going to college, they need help to not make bad decisions. Um, but again, that’s that’s that’s my soapbox. I won’t continue on it. 27% of companies in the survey have started dropping degree requirements. So again, that’s changing, right? The the companies are realizing those degrees are relatively worthless. So why have it as a requirement? It doesn’t mean anything. I’d rather have an ambitious, innovative, young professional without a degree than one who just had some generic humanities classes for four years just because they thought that’s what they were supposed to do.
So look, that’s what’s going on there. And the the apprenticeship data is also bothersome from this because 22% of organizations offer apprenticeship programs, only 22%, but among those that do, 82% say they’re effective at addressing talent shortages. Wow, what do you know? If we give relevant specific training, it’s effective. What a shock. Of course that’s the case. So kudos to the companies who are doing that. They’re providing their own education service, right? That’s what’s going on here. So this is a this is a good study. I like seeing more data like this. We need it because things have to change. I don’t know how and who exactly when that can happen, but we know that it is necessary. It’s necessary for young people, it’s necessary for our future. So that that’s those are the stories today. The economy’s growing, companies are investing, they’re spending money, but there’s really no connection between that activity and the actual jobs that are available because that’s weakening.
So interesting pattern, interesting time right now. It’s a shifting system. So everyone needs to be paying attention to that and control your own destiny. That is something that I always want to point out. No one’s coming to save you. You need to take the bull by the horns, you need to do this for yourself.
Fun fact: Professional line standers are a real job
So before we go today, here’s your fun fact. There’s a job that is a professional linestander where someone, you can hire people to stand in line for you, whether it’s you know concerts, if you’re waiting to get into somewhere. I hate standing in line. So if you’re a professional linestander in uh central Florida where I live, hook me, you know, hit me up. I I I may want your services at some point. So if you like standing in line, though, if whoever that might be, that job is available for you. So that’s it for today. Thank you for listening. Please like and subscribe. That would be awesome. And share with anyone who you think might be interested. And I look forward to talking to you tomorrow.
