Jobs & HiringOct 31, 2026·2 min read·🔥 High relevance

U.S workers just took home their smallest share of capital since at least 1947—and the lowest ever recorded

Fortune – Tech

3d ago

U.S workers just took home their smallest share of capital since at least 1947—and the lowest ever recorded

Summary

As corporate earnings soar and U.S. GDP balloons, the American workforce isn’t feeling the same boom. American workers are taking home less of the country’s overall income, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows, and employment in the U.S. is set to continue to slow. Goldman Sachs analysts Joseph Briggs and Sarah Dong estimated in a report, based on Department of Labor job numbers, that AI automation could displace 25% of all work hours . An Oxford Economists research brief from earlier this year suggested companies are disguising overhiring-related layoffs as a result of AI, but said automation-related workforce reductions have not yet happened en masse. Mark Regets, senior fellow at National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), sees a different reason for a slowing workforce. Instead, according to Regets, Trump’s immigration policies have not only decimated the foreign-born workforce, but has also created fewer opportunities for domestic-born workers to find jobs. Recent BLS data is counter-evidence to Miller’s argument that harsher immigration policy would grow the U.S. workforce. Greater immigration can also increase consumer spending and stimulate businesses, as well as encourage businesses to take advantage of ample labor market availability and seek out their labor instead of offshoring jobs. A CareerTrainer survey from June found that 72% of hiring managers intended to reskill employees.

From the source

As corporate earnings soar and U.S. GDP balloons, the American workforce isn’t feeling the same boom. American workers are taking home less of the country’s overall income, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows, and employment in the U.S. is set to continue to slow. Labor share, or the portion of the U.S.’s economic output that workers receive through salary and wages, decreased to 52.8% in the second quarter of 2026, its lowest level since the BLS started recording this data in 1947, according to its labor productivity and costs report . In the previous quarter, labor share was at 53.6%. This decade, the labor share average was about 55.6%. That’s despite corporate earnings skyrocketing, with profits for Fortune 500 companies hitting a record $2.1 trillion in 2025. The U.S. GDP grew 3.4% in the third quarter last year, exceeding economists’ predictions. That growth has not only come at the expense of how much of the pie of wealth workers are taking home, but also how many Ame

Read the full article

Published by Fortune – Tech on fortune.com

Open on fortune.com ↗

More in Jobs & Hiring

Jobs & Hiring16h ago

‘Going hungry’: Garment workers in Bangladesh say wages barely cover needs

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Laili Begum can no longer afford to keep her two children in school. A Muslim-majority South Asian nation of 170 million people, Bangladesh has one of the world’s lowest wages among apparel-producing countries. Cambodia has a minimum wage of $210 a month for garment workers, Vietnam’s range from $140-$210, while wages at China’s manufacturing hub of Guangdong range between $286 and $378. That disparity – worsened by rising inflation and the growing cost of living – pushed the workers to strike and hit the streets on Saturday to demand a minimum wage of 30,000 taka ($241), more than double the current wage of 12,500 taka ($102). Later that day, the government announced the formation of a six-member wage board to review the workers’ demands. The last revision of the minimum wage in the garment sector took place in December 2023. The government’s announcement of a wage board follows an amendment to labour laws to reduce the wage review cycle from five years to three years. Labour Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury meanwhile urged the workers to resume work, saying the wage board would begin its deliberations shortly. The impending wage negotiations come at a challenging time for Bangladesh’s garment industry, as manufacturers balance workers’ demands for better wages with rising production costs and intensifying global competition. However, without fair purchasing prices from international brands, significant wage increases could put pressure on factories and threaten employment,” he said.

aljazeera.com Read ↗

Jobs & Hiring2d ago

Even as unemployment falls, lack of ‘decent work’ in India

Subscribed with another email? Measured this way, India’s labour market persistently exhibits high levels of informality, insecure employment, and increasing inequalities. Using two rounds of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), 2017-18 and 2023-24, the quality of employment in India has been analysed. Though employment opportunities are increasing, labour protections and job security are not improving at the same pace. Agriculture, which continues to employ the largest share of India’s workforce, remains the lowest-quality employment generating sector. Workers remain dependent on casual employment, subcontracting chains and insecure labour arrangements. Nearly 90% of India’s workforce remains informally employed, a share that has risen since 2019, according to the India Employment Report 2024 (ILO–IHD). However, informalisation of jobs reduces decent work creation in India over time. India has to shift from a ‘job-counting approach’ to a ‘job-quality approach’. Until then, India’s employment success story will remain incomplete — no nation can call itself developed while its workforce remains insecure.

thehindu.com Read ↗

Jobs & Hiring4d ago

Q3 2026 Employment Cost Index: Rising Healthcare Costs Keep Haunting Employers

Key points : Total compensation costs for private-industry workers rose 3.4% year-over-year in the third quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), driven in large part by a 6.4% spike in employers’ health insurance costs. Benefit costs climbed 3.9%, outpacing growth in wages and salaries (3.1%). Adjusted for inflation, real wages fell 0.6% from a year ago, a second straight quarterly decline. Wage growth is falling, but employers’ total compensation costs are rising — a sign that workers are getting paid more on net than they were a few years ago, but taking home less of it in their paychecks as the cost of employer-provided health insurance continues to soar. The tradeoff may be going unnoticed or unappreciated by workers hyper-focused on affordability issues after seeing their real wages decline for the second straight quarter when accounting for high inflation. Total compensation costs for private-industry workers rose 3.4% year-over-year in the third quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), driven in large part by a 6.4% spike in employers’ health insurance costs. Benefit costs climbed 3.9%, outpacing growth in wages and salaries (3.1%). Adjusted for inflation, real wages fell 0.6% from a year ago, a second straight quarterly decline. Employers seem to be noticing the interest in sponsored health plans and are putting health coverage front and center in their job postings as they compete for workers’ attention — especially as wage growth slows and competing solely on pay may be getting more difficult. So far in 2026, 46.9% of US job postings on Indeed mentioned health insurance, up from 45.0% in 2025 and 35.7% in 2022.

hiringlab.indeed.com Read ↗