👋 Welcome back, TA pros!

Can you say “white-collar recession?”

So, 82% of those surveyed by recruiting tech company Employ, Inc., say a white-collar recession is happening amid growing layoffs in middle management. It’s taking a toll, too. Two-thirds of white-collar job seekers report burnout due to a stagnant job market.

Job postings for desk-based workers have declined YOY, meaning more workers are competing for fewer roles. Plus, the job market’s splitting.

“We’re seeing two very different job markets emerge — one overwhelmed with applications and another starved for talent,” Stephanie Manzelli, Chief Human Resources Officer at Employ, told HR Dive.

TA pros won’t be shocked by this, but the contrast is sharp: feast or famine, and no one’s handing out menus.

Questions? Comments? Wondering if anyone’s listening? Reply to this email — we’d love to hear from you!

— Team Talivity ✨

Today’s issue is a 4-minute read. Here’s what to expect 👇

🪃 Boomerang hiring is making a comeback
💰️ Workers aren’t as willing to move — stubbornly so
⚖️ Judge greenlights age-bias class action against Workday
💻 Amazon, Nike, Prime Medicine join this week’s layoff list

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here 📥️

NEWS

One Thing You Should Know This Week

ADP: Boomerang Hiring Is Bouncing Back

It turns out the grass on the other side wasn’t greener, it was just differently disappointing. Some employees found this out the hard way. Now, employers are getting them back on board. Workers who were once active on the payroll and left are now getting rehired at a significant pace.

Payroll services provider ADP says these boomerangers make up just two percent of active employees, but make up nearly a third (31%) of new hires on average.

🖼️ The Big Picture

First it was the Great Resignation; now it’s the Great Return. With voluntary quits down more than 25% from their March 2022 peak, employers are opting for low-risk, high-speed hiring by welcoming back familiar faces. Boomerang workers made up 35% of all March 2025 hires—and a staggering two-thirds in the information sector—because they ramp faster, cost less, and fill scarce-skill roles without the relocation gamble. For TA teams, that turns every alumni database into this year’s hottest sourcing channel and makes a graceful off-boarding your best future recruiting strategy.

🧮 By the Numbers

This trend is consistent across every industry sector surveyed, growing from 2024 to today, with the biggest numbers of bounce-back employees as new hires in:

• Information: 68%
• Education: 55%
• Finance and insurance: 39%
• Natural resources: 36%
• Leisure and hospitality: 35%

💼 What This Means for TAs

Mining your alumni list might beat sifting through another hundred resumes with AI-laced keywords and questionable skills. Targeting former employees can cut onboarding time, lower costs, and—let’s be honest—offer a bit of insurance in a skittish market.

Workers are being more cautious, too. So, emphasizing stability and growth can be a big plus. TAs can emphasize that boomerang hires require less training and can be a cost-efficient option for clients or companies.

Nela Richardson at ADP chalks it up to three things:

1. It’s easier to onboard someone who already knows where the coffee is.
2. Many have learned the hard way that “new opportunity” sometimes just means “new kind of chaos.”
3. Economic uncertainty makes familiar dysfunction look surprisingly attractive.

🔮 Looking Ahead

Remote work may have stretched talent pools, but geography still rules: the household mobility rate slid to a record-low 8.2 percent in 2024, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS). With millions of homeowners locked into sub-4 percent mortgages—and still wary of post-pandemic layoffs—few candidates will gamble on a cross-country move. That scarcity of relocatable talent makes niche skills even harder to buy on the open market.

So before you budget for another national search, open your alumni spreadsheet. Boomerang hires already know your culture, clear security faster, and deliver value in weeks, not months—an ROI that’s hard for any hiring committee to ignore. Need help translating those insights into an action plan? Connect with our consulting team for a strategic roadmap to engage your highest-potential alumni today.

📥️ Read more at ADP Research.

CONFERENCE CALL OUT

Conferences Worth Attending

⏰ Final Hours to Save $1,500+ on CultureCon West 2025

Talivity is heading to CultureCon West 2025, and if workplace culture is part of your strategy, this is a conference worth your time. Happening November 3–5 at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, CultureCon is where some of the most forward-thinking people leaders gather to explore what it really takes to build inclusive, engaging, and high-performing workplaces.

It’s not just talk. You’ll leave with real tools, new connections, and a fresh perspective on how to rethink the way work, works.

Attendees also receive a FREE Certificate in Organizational Culture Leadership (a $599 value), and sessions qualify for SHRM and HRCI credits.

Early bird pricing ends May 31st. Register with Talivity’s discount code TALIVITY25 and you’ll unlock a bigger discount on the Full Conference Experience pass, on top of early bird pricing…saving you over $1,500.

🌍 If you were at UNLEASH in Vegas earlier this month, you already know the value. Now imagine that on a global scale.

UNLEASH World is happening this October 20-22 in Paris, and it’s one of the most influential gatherings in HR tech, talent strategy, and the future of work.

If your team is expanding into EMEA or you’ve already got people in Europe, this is a smart event to build into your plans. Meet global buyers, connect with forward-thinking HR leaders, and get plugged into the international talent tech ecosystem.

Talivity will be there, and we’d love to team up with others who are attending. If you’re planning to go, let us know!

Register Here

NUMBERS

Numbers That’ll Make You Think

• 6%  — Percentage of Gen Z workers who say their primary goal is to reach a leadership position (Deloitte)
• 93% — The percentage of IT leaders who believe merging IT and HR together would increase productivity and boost employee satisfaction (Unleash)
• 48% — Percentage of tech execs already adopting or fully deploying agentic AI (EY)
• 72% — The percentage of HR leaders who say AI will be the dominant driver of workforce transformation (Unleash)
• $10m — The amount that top researchers at AI company OpenAI make in a year (Reuters)

EVENTS

Ways to Connect

⭐️ Reputation Reset: Re‑engineering Your Employer Brand on Glassdoor, Indeed & Beyond

 June 12 | 1 PM ET

Join us to learn how to take control of the conversation around your brand. We’ll show you how to spot reputation risks early, turn negative signals into trust-building moments, and build a proactive, data-backed recovery plan.

Plus, you’ll get actionable tools like templates and checklists — and an exclusive first look at Talivity’s new Employer Reputation Navigator.

👉 Register

📊 Talent Market Index (TMI) Briefing: Your Real-Time Pulse on the Talent Economy
June 17 | 1 PM ET
As summer sets in, the job market is shifting, with more than just rising temperatures at play. In June’s Talent Market Index, we unpack the latest hiring trends across industries navigating tighter budgets, seasonal changes, and the growing impact of AI on workforce planning.

Whether you’re seeing a surge in applicants or facing hard-to-fill roles, this month’s data offers clear, actionable insight to help you understand what’s truly shaping the talent market. And where to focus next.

👉 Register

🤖 From Hyped to Hired: What Actually Works in AI for Talent Acquisition

July 9 | 1 PM ET

Cut through the noise and get real about AI in talent acquisition. In this session, you’ll hear what’s actually working from TA leaders in the field, uncover fast-win use cases, and learn how to avoid the most common traps.

We’ll also debut Talivity’s AI Talent Map — a new resource to help you benchmark where you are, where to go next, and how to make AI work for your hiring strategy.

👉 Register

INDUSTRY INTEL

M&A Deals, Industry Moves & Other Things to Know

• The healthcare company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, Novo Nordisk, ousts its CEO, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, amid increased competition and falling share price (Healthcare Brew)
• Telecom giant Verizon ends its DEI policies ahead of the Federal Communications Commission approving its deal to buy broadband provider Frontier (NPR)
• Arkansas, Indiana, and Utah join other states in regulating earned wage access (EWA) programs, covering fees, licensing, and reporting (HR Brew)
• Judge rules that a collective-action lawsuit against HR software company Workday alleging discrimination against workers over age 40 can move forward (HR Dive)
• Workday announces what it calls “a next generation of illuminate agents” to speed up and streamline HR and finance (Workday Newsroom)
• Workers at the regional transportation authority, New Jersey Transit, are on strike over wages and job security after rejecting the most recent proposal (AP News)
• With the number of job applications increasing by 102%, recruiting software platform Greenhouse adds new AI tools to better handle the growing volume of applicants (HR Brew)
• The US Department of Labor reports that applications for unemployment are holding steady despite concerns over economic slowdowns and tariffs (AP News)

LAYOFFS

Places For You To Source Talent

• Online retailer Amazon lays off 100 employees in its Devices and Services unit, bringing the total number of layoffs to 27,000 since 2022 (CNBC)
• Sports retailer Nike announces an undisclosed number of layoffs in a shift to outsourcing some work to third-party vendors (USA Today)
• Biotech company Prime Medicine is replacing its CEO and laying off 25% of its staff (STAT News)
• EdTech company Chegg announces layoffs for 248 employees, about 22% of its workforce, in a cost-cutting measure to streamline operations (Reuters)
• As the school year ends, more than 200 teachers in the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) in California are facing layoffs (CBS News/KCAL)

 👋 Thanks for reading!