25k job cuts per month (yet 29% rehiring the same people)

Five stories should sharpen your focus this week:

Goldman Sachs found that 25,000 roles per month are being cut, while 9,000 are created back.¹ As we have been saying, it is not about job destruction, it is about reengineering.
55% of companies that cut workers for AI already regret it, with 29% rehiring the same people.² Block cut 40% in February, then quietly brought teams back six weeks later. We wrote about this exact pattern in The Reshape Economy.
The DOL proposed replacing the 6-factor IC classification test with a simplified 2-factor test.³ If it passes, this is a massive regulatory tailwind for the flexible workforce, with an estimated $2.31 billion in savings for small businesses over 10 years.
The U.S. freelance workforce tops 72 million, up 22% in six months, and is projected to hit 86.5 million by 2027.⁴
Fractional executive demand is up 46% year-over-year.⁵ The market has topped $5.7 billion globally, growing 14% annually, and 72% of CEOs plan to increase their use of fractional executives in the next 12 months.

The message is clear: flexible talent over fixed talent.

We call it the flip:

Smaller core teams, with agents executing, and the exact human expertise working flexibly to build and own those agents.

Are you ready to flip? Search your needs and build your first shortlist today

Exciting Opportunities

Community Call

HC Community Call - April 30, 12:00 PM EST

We have SUCH an exciting community call this month. We will discuss how $4b reshoring initiatives are leaning into the Human Cloud, along with:

Executive sentiment from Tony Buffum
UK Policy and demand updates from Jack Spencer
How to generate leads from LLMs from Martins Vilums

Apply to Join

#BOSTechWeek

Hacking The Workforce - May 28, 1-5 PM

An afternoon of expert sessions and hands-on building. Hear from Tony Buffum (former CHRO, FLIR), General Mike McGinley (DoD), and Matthew Mottola on how AI is reshaping the talent equation. Then build and deploy your own workforce agent.

Hosted at Babson College Boston, the #1 School for Entrepreneurship, 29 years running.

Apply to Attend

Platform Pulse

Research activity continues to climb week-over-week. Here is what the signals are telling us:

Marketing and AI solutions are dominating company attention.
Singapore traffic is emerging.
Organic search is growing. Companies are increasingly finding solutions through Google and embedded links, not just direct traffic.