US manufacturing mired in weakness as tariffs bite

U.S. manufacturing remained sluggish in June, with new orders subdued and prices paid for inputs creeping higher, suggesting that the Trump administration's tariffs on imported goods continued to hamper businesses' ability to plan ahead.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Tuesday that its manufacturing PMI nudged up to 49.0 last month from a six-month low of 48.5 in May. It was the fourth straight month that the PMI was below the 50 mark, which indicates contraction in the sector that accounts for 10.2% of the economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PMI little changed at 48.8. READ MORE

Getting a Wharton MBA Was 'a Waste of Time,' According to a Global Bank CEO. Here's the Degree He Recommends Instead.

Bill Winters, the CEO of 160-year-old bank Standard Chartered, says that the MBA he earned from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business was a "waste of time" — but the humanities undergraduate degree he received from Colgate University was more worth it.

In an interview that aired earlier this week, Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua asked Winters, 63, what he would recommend for young people to study. Winters responded by saying that he studied international relations and history as an undergraduate, graduating in 1983. He recommended those fields, stating that majoring in those areas taught him "how to think."

But his MBA from Wharton in 1988 was unnecessary, he said. READ MORE

Tech Leaders Predict a Human Hiring Boom as Workers Gain AI Skills

In the wake of the pandemic, companies were pushed into rapid digital transformation—ushering in a flood of new tools designed to support remote and hybrid workforces. But this digital acceleration came at a cost: employee burnout. In response, HR leaders began partnering more closely with IT and tech providers to streamline communication, ease cognitive overload and help teams stay productive under growing pressure.

At the heart of the problem was the constant barrage of emails, pings and alerts, all compounded by the ubiquity of smartphones. In response, digital wellness apps and mental health campaigns gained traction. Yet many missed the mark. This struggle to tame digital overload paved the way for the rise of employee experience platforms (EXPs). Platforms like ServiceNow emerged as early pioneers, creating unified environments where employees could access communications, resources and tools in one seamless interface. READ MORE

How enterprise AI is reshaping EX

In the wake of the pandemic, companies were pushed into rapid digital transformation—ushering in a flood of new tools designed to support remote and hybrid workforces. But this digital acceleration came at a cost: employee burnout. In response, HR leaders began partnering more closely with IT and tech providers to streamline communication, ease cognitive overload and help teams stay productive under growing pressure.

At the heart of the problem was the constant barrage of emails, pings and alerts, all compounded by the ubiquity of smartphones. In response, digital wellness apps and mental health campaigns gained traction. Yet many missed the mark. This struggle to tame digital overload paved the way for the rise of employee experience platforms (EXPs). Platforms like ServiceNow emerged as early pioneers, creating unified environments where employees could access communications, resources and tools in one seamless interface. READ MORE

AI warnings are the hip new way for CEOs to keep their workers afraid of losing their jobs

Every few weeks, the Earth cries out for an artificial intelligence scare on a frequency heard only by tech CEOs. And lo, like a rain cloud over a parched valley, here comes Amazon boss Andy Jassy to shower us with fresh fear and dread.

In a memo sent to employees titled “Some thoughts on Generative AI,” Jassy spent 1,200 words largely rattling off examples of Amazon’s AI progress. It is making Alexa, its personal assistant software, “meaningfully smarter,” and turning its customer service chatbot into “an even better experience.” (How, and by what measure? He didn’t say. But “you get the idea,” he wrote.) READ MORE

3 Surprising Financial Benefits of Unretiring (It’s More Than Just a Salary)

Retirement isn’t always the final chapter — sometimes it’s just a pause. 

One survey conducted by T. Rowe Price, found that millions of retirees have returned to work in search of financial and emotional benefits. Whether you miss the structure, the sense of purpose, or want to boost your bank account, more people are choosing to “unretire” and reenter the workforce. 

And it turns out, the financial upsides go far beyond a steady paycheck.  READ MORE

State AGs led by NY’s Letitia James pressure Meta to clean up investment scams on Facebook

A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.

James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses. Her office continues to see the scams months after reporting them to Meta, she added. READ MORE

Employers report plans to ‘quiet fire’ via RTO mandates, benefits cuts and more

To avoid formal layoffs, 53% of companies are already engaging in or soon plan to engage in “quiet firing,” according to a May 27 report from Resume Templates. Tactics include cutting benefits, increasing workloads or mandating more office time.

Although the move can be effective, nearly nine in 10 companies that started quiet firing this year said it has reduced morale. READ MORE

Politics in the Workplace and the New Administration

In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, employers navigated the difficult terrain of managing employees’ expressions of diverging political and social beliefs in the workplace. Now that the 2024 election has passed and the second Trump administration has taken the reins of the executive branch, employers face a new question: How will the change in administration impact the legal concerns associated with politics in the workplace? Many changes have already come to fruition, and employers should expect many more to follow.  READ MORE

What is ‘quiet cracking’? Worker disengagement has a new name

The root cause of quiet cracking may be workers feeling insecure in their current jobs, the report indicated. This lack of confidence could be the result of a lack of training, which makes workers feel insecure in their role, according to the data. Employees who said they hadn’t received any training in the past year were also 140% more likely to feel insecure about their jobs. 

Researchers also outlined a lack of connection as a factor in quiet cracking. Employees say they are experiencing what researchers called “managerial disconnect,” with 47% of employees experiencing quiet cracking saying that their managers do not listen to their concerns. READ MORE

I’m a LinkedIn Executive. I See the Bottom Rung of the Career Ladder Breaking.

There are growing signs that artificial intelligence poses a real threat to a substantial number of the jobs that normally serve as the first step for each new generation of young workers. Uncertainty around tariffs and global trade is likely to only accelerate that pressure, just as millions of 2025 graduates enter the work force.

We saw what happened in the 1980s when our manufacturing sector steeply declined. Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption. READ MORE

Why spreadsheets aren’t going away anytime soon

In the quest for modernization, some CFOs face the temptation to abandon spreadsheets in favor of cloud-based ERP systems and other more recent technology innovations. Common reasons for moving away from spreadsheets include limits to scalability and the need for more robust data management and collaboration features.

Yet, using financial planning software (FPS) as an example, recent research indicates that 51% of finance leaders still opt for a detailed bottom-up planning process using spreadsheets and then load those sheets into the FPS. Using spreadsheets for core finance tasks like this is not optimal but there is also more nuance than simply stopping their use altogether. READ MORE