Workforce

Six men in T-shirts and work trousers stand in a row on grass beneath a large tree at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, smiling and making shaka hand signs.

The Navy Lent Six Pearl Harbor Welders to Electric Boat and 95.5 Per Cent of Their Weld Tests Passed. About 130 More Public-Yard Workers Are Coming.

A Navy pilot that sent a supervisor and five nuclear welders from Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard to General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, produced a 95.5 per cent pass rate on radiographically tested welds, the Navy said on 16 October. A Navy official said about 130 more public-shipyard workers are being lined up to support Electric Boat.

By Margaret Holloway October 18, 2026

National News

The Federal Workforce Shrank by 272,000. The Cost Was $9.5 Billion in Pay for Not Working.

The federal government paid employees $9.5 billion in paid administrative leave in 2025, a sixfold increase from 2023, as part of the DOGE-driven workforce reduction effort. The Department of Government Efficiency formally shut down on July 4. Eighteen of twenty-two major agencies lost more than 10 percent of their workforce. The Department of Education lost more than 45 percent.

By Daniel Okafor October 9, 2026

Workers on a manufacturing production floor

National News

Manufacturers Are Coming Home. The Workers Are Not There Yet.

Thirty-six percent of OEM manufacturers had reshored or were actively reshoring in 2026, up from twenty-nine percent in 2025, according to the Reshoring Initiative's second annual survey. The constraint is not capital. Sixty-six percent of respondents rated hiring skilled technicians as very difficult or at crisis levels.

By Daniel Okafor October 9, 2026

National News

The Workforce Shrank. The Jobs Did Not.

A 596,000 decline in foreign-born workers since January 2026, combined with a parallel drop in labor force participation among US-born workers, has left employers in construction, healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing unable to fill open positions. The labor shortage the crackdown was supposed to solve has deepened.

By Daniel Okafor October 9, 2026

An empty meeting room with chairs around a table.

The Long View

The Company Chooses the Number. The Workforce Chooses the People.

Jaguar Land Rover has opened a voluntary programme covering about 4,000 salaried and management roles. A voluntary round is humane, cheaper to run and legally cleaner than the alternative. It is also the one method of reducing headcount in which the employer does not decide who goes.

By Margaret Holloway September 8, 2026

Victoria hospital emergency entrance sign with building

Health

The Emergency Department Hires Security Before It Hires Nurses

Assaults on hospital workers are frequent enough that security has become a standing cost, and the spending competes directly with the staffing whose absence contributes to the problem.

By Thomas Gutierrez August 27, 2026

Empty modern office space under construction with installed desks and temporary power supply. An industrial workspace setting highlighting infrastructure, readiness, and contemporary office design.

Opinion

If You Automate the Entry Level, You Have Chosen Not to Have Seniors

Every firm removing junior work is making a decision about its capability in 2031, and almost none of them are making it on purpose. The right question is not what the work costs but what it teaches.

By Margaret Holloway August 21, 2026

14-1011-039 print 8x10 b&w "D" Ward, US Naval Hospital, Quantico, VA. [Ward][Nurses][Corpsmen][Patients] Navy Medicine Historical Files Collection - Facilities

Health

Travel Nursing Was Supposed to Be Temporary

Hospitals brought in contract nurses to cover a crisis and have not been able to stop. The rates came down, the dependency did not, and the permanent staff who remain now work beside colleagues paid differently for the same shift.

By Thomas Gutierrez August 21, 2026

AI Takes the Entry-Level Work That Used to Train Everyone

The work most exposed to automation is concentrated at the bottom of the org chart, which is also where the profession's training happened. Firms are removing the rung without deciding what replaces it.

By Alison Acosta August 21, 2026

Sunrise behind the United States Capitol in Washington

National News

Agencies Cannot Hire Fast Enough to Spend What Congress Appropriated

Large programmes were funded on the assumption that the agencies administering them could staff up to run them. The hiring system they must use was built for a different era and has become the binding constraint.

By Margaret Holloway August 16, 2026

A nurse smiling with an elderly patient in a room at home

Health

Home Health Becomes the Contested Ground

Every payer wants care delivered at home because it is cheaper. The workforce that would deliver it is the least stable in the industry, and the two facts have not yet been reconciled.

By Cory Chamberlain August 15, 2026

A man and a woman shaking hands across a laptop after an offer

Leadership

Degrees Optional: Skills-Based Hiring Passes the Durability Test

Dropping degree requirements began as a tight-labor-market expedient. Several years of retention and performance data have turned it into policy.

By Thomas Gutierrez August 12, 2026

National News

Courts Discover the Public Defender Shortage Is a Budget Problem

Caseload standards and staffing reality have diverged far enough that courts are dismissing cases and appointing private counsel at cost. The constitutional obligation is being met with a checkbook.

By Cory Chamberlain August 11, 2026

$An empty hospital corridor seen through propped fire doors$

Health

Primary Care Confronts Its Labor Math

The physician shortage in primary care is no longer a projection. The response taking shape reorganizes who does what, rather than waiting for doctors who are not coming.

By Cory Chamberlain August 10, 2026

A group seated in a training room facing a projector screen

Opinion

Stop Calling It a Talent Shortage When You Mean a Training Shortage

Employers describe a scarcity of qualified candidates as an external condition, as though qualification were weather. It is a thing they used to produce and stopped.

By Margaret Holloway August 10, 2026

Explainer

Regional Economies Discover How Much of Their Growth Was Immigration

In a large number of metropolitan areas the working-age population grew for one reason only. Employers and local governments are now doing arithmetic they had not previously had to do.

By Thomas Gutierrez August 9, 2026

An apprentice in a work vest on site during a training placement

National News

Federal Workforce Programs Meet the Employers They Were Built For

Decades of job training funding produced mixed results. The programs now showing measurable wage gains share one feature: an employer at the table before the curriculum is written.

By Margaret Holloway August 2, 2026

A pharmacy storefront with a prescriptions sign in the window

Health

The Pharmacy Desert Spreads Past the Rural Counties

Chain closures have moved the access problem into cities, where the affected neighborhoods have transit rather than distance working against them. The economics behind the closures are not local.

By Thomas Gutierrez August 1, 2026

Workforce

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