👋 Welcome back! Gen Z just realized their $200K diploma might be a shiny piece of toilet paper.

According to HR Dive, nearly half of Gen Z job seekers now think AI made their college degrees irrelevant. After four years of lectures, debt, and dorm food, it’s a tough pill to swallow — especially when ChatGPT can now outwrite you, out-research you, and never needs a coffee break.

Employers aren’t exactly rushing to disagree either, and many grads are rethinking what “qualified” even means in a world run by algorithms.

Questions? Comments? Tired of seeing those ChatGPT action figures? Reply to this email — we’d love to hear from you! 

— Team Talivity ✨

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

🗞️ Tough road ahead for the class of 2025

🌎️ 54% of tech firms planning layoffs this year

💰️️ EU hits Apple and Meta with competition fines

💼 Layoffs at EPA, Intel, and Volvo

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NEWS

One Thing You Should Know This Week

Hiring Lab: New Grads Face Murky Job Market

The class of 2025 is about to step off campus and into one of the most uncertain job markets in recent years. Indeed Hiring Lab’s latest labor market update paints a sobering picture for fresh graduates with diplomas in hand but question marks about their future.

🖼️ The big picture

While headline employment numbers appear strong, they’re disproportionately propped up by healthcare and social services growth. For many new grads, the traditional entry points into professional careers are vanishing before their eyes, with internship postings falling 11% below last year’s levels and now dipping below 2019 numbers.

🧮 By the numbers

The sectors offering the most internships and entry-level roles:

• 15.5% — Pharmacy leads internship opportunities by a wide margin
• 7.7% — Marketing
• 5.3% — Civil engineering
• 5% — Media & communications
• 17.8% — Food service offers the most entry-level positions
• 16.8% — Driving jobs roles requiring less than one year experience
• 16.7% — Sanitation roles that are accessible and entry-level

💼 What this means for TAs

If you’re recruiting for healthcare, congrats – you’ve got the strongest talent pool in years. For everyone else, competition is intensifying for a shrinking pool of opportunities. Smart recruiters should consider tapping the rich talent pool of recent graduates for roles traditionally requiring more experience, focusing on training and skills development could close that experience gap fast.

👔 What this means for job seekers

New grads should prepare for a more competitive talent market. While the unemployment rate for recent graduates remains relatively low, it’s becoming more volatile – signaling that landing that first professional job might take longer and require more flexibility than in previous years. Many may need to consider roles outside their field of study as a stepping stone.

🔮 Looking ahead

Flexibility, persistence, and the ability to pivot will define successful entry into today’s workforce. The class of 2025 will need to embrace the uncertainty rather than fight it.

📥️️ Read more in Indeed’s Hiring Lab.

NUMBERS

Numbers That’ll Make You Think

• 170% — The increase in US job postings mentioning GenAI or related terms from January 2024 to January 2025. By next year, even your Roomba will have a résumé. (Indeed’s Hiring Lab)
• 54% — Tech hiring managers who say their firms plan layoffs in the next year. One minute you’re optimizing a workflow. The next, optimizing your LinkedIn profile. (Staffing Industry)
• 70 minutes — The time it takes a researcher with no image manipulation experience to create a deepfake job candidate that could pass for a real person in a video interview. A little over an hour to deepfake a candidate, 7 months to onboard a real one. (HR Dive)
• 52% — Employers who have increased their use of skilled freelancers over the past three years. The new org chart is just a Google Sheet with mysterious Gmail addresses and timezone conflicts. (Unleash AI)
• 1.2 million — Potential federal job losses under President Trump’s staffing reductions. The Hunger Games, but for federal employment. (Staffing Industry)

Talivity is heading to UNLEASH America

INDUSTRY INTEL

C-Suite Shakeups, Executive Moves, & Other Things To Know

• The European Union has fined Apple €500 million ($570 million) and Meta €200 million ($230 million) for violating the Digital Markets Act. Big tech just got financially grounded by Brussels. (NY Times)
• Small business tech adoption is booming, with more than half of small businesses now using generative AI. Grandma’s quilting business just launched a chatbot named “StitchGPT.” (Gusto)
• Automation is replacing contingent workers at 14% of firms. Robots are coming for your job—and they don’t even want dental. (Staffing Industry)
• California state Sen. Jerry McNerney has introduced the “No Robo Bosses Act” to require human oversight of automated decision. Finally, a law that protects you from getting fired by an algorithm that thinks your name is a red flag. (HR Brew)
• Professional services giant KPMG has launched an internal chatbot system called “Kai” to improve candidate interaction with career sites and reduce the time it takes recruiters to schedule interviews. About 23,000 questions later, Kai has seen the darkness and knows no peace. (HR Brew)
• Chief human resource officers are becoming increasingly influential in boardrooms, with 70% of corporate secretaries reporting increased engagement with boards during the past three years. CHROs have entered their “main character at the board meeting” era. (HR Dive)
• Job site Indeed has dismissed its lawsuit against ZipRecruiter that alleged false and misleading statements. No money changed hands, but somewhere a lawyer bought a boat anyway. (Staffing Industry)

LAYOFFS

Places For You To Source Fresh Talent

• Environmental watchdog EPA is cutting almost 300 employees as the Trump Administration eliminates programs tagged with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. (EE News)
• Semiconductor giant Intel plans to cut more than 20% of its workforce this week as new CEO Lip-Bu Tan aims to streamline management and rebuild an engineering-driven culture. This follows last year’s effort to slash about 15,000 jobs. (Bloomberg)
• Oil producer ConocoPhillips has announced plans for layoffs as part of a broad restructuring following its $23 billion buyout of Marathon Oil. (Reuters)
• Automaker Volvo Group is planning hundreds of layoffs across Pennsylvania and Maryland operations, including 250-350 people at Mack Trucks’ Lehigh Valley facility over the next 90 days. (Trucking Dive)

 👋 Thanks for reading!