Why do middle managers stop advancing?

Middle management is one of the most important transition points in the leadership pipeline, where organizations turn capable employees into future senior leaders. These internal pipelines deliver significant value, because leaders developed inside the business can apply existing organizational knowledge and relationships immediately, without the cost and time often required to bring external hires up to speed. Yet when senior leadership roles open, many organizations find they have too few internal candidates ready to step into them. READ MORE

Trump Admin Takes Equity Stake in IBM

After taking equity stakes in chipmakers and rare-earth element miners, the Trump administration has a new industry on its radar: quantum computing.

On Thursday, the Department of Commerce announced that it was investing more than $2 billion in nine quantum computing companies. In turn, it’ll receive “a minority, non-controlling equity stake” in each. READ MORE

CEO walks back comments about replacing 'lower-value human capital' with AI

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters on Wednesday walked back comments he made at an investor event Tuesday when he said the bank plans to cut thousands of jobs as it replaces what he called "lower-value human capital" with tech powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Winters wrote a memo to the bank's employees on Wednesday in which he sought to address concerns that arose following his comments on Tuesday, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. READ MORE

I was rejected for a job 6 minutes after I applied. I told the company that AI was screening out strong candidates.

I started my career at the entry level and worked my way up to essentially running IT companies in the managed-services space, overseeing IT operations for multiple clients. Recently, I found myself on the job market for the first time in 10 years. It's changed a lot.

I got some interviews right away, but I also got a lot of rejections. Nobody likes to be rejected. I've got children, rent, and animals to take care of, and those responsibilities start to weigh on you. READ MORE

Jamie Dimon warns markets have 'too much exuberance

Hold the champagne — Jamie Dimon just gave investors a cause for pause. The JPMorgan Chase CEO told Bloomberg the markets may have "too much exuberance" and he's "kind of a skeptic."

These comments come at a time when the stock market has rallied sharply off its March lows. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) fell about 9% from its January high before recovering to a nearly 9% gain for the year. Dimon's cold-water remarks are a soft departure from general optimism. READ MORE

Greg Abel Recently Bought $235 Million Worth of Warren Buffett's Favorite Stock

Warren Buffett served as the CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB) holding company from 1965 to 2025. It became a trillion-dollar conglomerate under his leadership, with numerous wholly owned subsidiaries and a $300 billion portfolio of publicly traded stocks and securities.

At the start of 2026, Buffett handed the reins to his chosen successor, Greg Abel, who has some big shoes to fill. Abel kicked off his tenure by purchasing $235 million worth of his predecessor's favorite stock -- but you won't find it in Berkshire's portfolio. READ MORE

He Bought an Auto Shop, Fired Everyone on Day One — and Says It Was the Best Move He Ever Made

An entrepreneur’s story about buying a struggling auto repair shop and firing the entire staff has sparked debate across X after a repost from the Cars&Horsepower account drew fresh attention to the tale. The post, originally shared by entrepreneur Brian Beers, described the chaotic conditions he claims he found on his first day as owner.

The story gained wider traction after it was quote-posted by Cars & Horsepower on May 15, 2026. The account summarized the thread with a blunt takeaway: don't be afraid to fire employees who are dragging down a business. READ MORE

Trump admin rolls out Workforce Pell Grants to fast-track workers into high-demand jobs

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled the nation’s first Workforce Pell Grant program, a federal student aid initiative designed to move Americans more quickly into high-demand jobs through short-term training and certification programs.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the program in a FOX Business exclusive interview on "Mornings with Maria," calling it a key part of President Donald Trump’s workforce and economic agenda. READ MORE

Why AI interviews are losing 1 in 3 candidates

Both employers and job seekers are increasingly tapping AI to guide the job interview process, but their strategies are still very much a work in progress.

New research finds real hesitation among job candidates about interviewing for a job with no human present, with concern spiking when transparency isn’t centered in the interview process. At the same time, they are increasingly leveraging AI for real-time assistance during live interviews, highlighting the complexities facing today’s HR and recruiting professionals in an AI-influenced job market. READ MORE

Economy adds 115,000 jobs, far better than expected

US job growth continued to strengthen in April as the unemployment rate remained flat, offering another sign that the labor market might be stabilizing.

Payrolls rose by 115,000 last month and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had estimated a median gain of 65,000 jobs following March’s blockbuster increase of 178,000 roles, which was revised upward to 185,000. February’s jobs report was revised lower to a loss of 156,000 positions. READ MORE

Ghost Jobs: What They Actually Reveal About How Senior Hiring Works

Between 18% and 27% of online job postings are ghost jobs. Postings for roles that companies have no current intention of filling, kept live for pipeline building, perception management, or simple administrative inertia. That figure comes from multiple independent analyses, including Greenhouse's platform data and a 2025 ResumeUp.AI study of LinkedIn listings, and it's consistent with BLS JOLTS data showing a persistent monthly gap of over 2.1 million between reported openings and actual hires.

For any job seeker, that's a significant waste of time. For senior professionals specifically, it's a navigational problem, because of how senior candidates are advised to search. READ MORE

U.S. Productivity Growth Slowed in Q1 2026

Nonfarm business productivity (output per hour) slowed more than expected in Q1 to 0.8% q/q saar from a downwardly revised 1.6% in last year’s fourth quarter (previously 1.8%). The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a 1.6% quarterly increase in productivity. Compared to a year ago, productivity rose 2.9% y/y in Q1, up from 2.5% in Q4. Since productivity growth began to accelerate at the beginning of 2023, it has grown at a well above trend 2.6% annual rate, likely a reflection of AI and other technology advances. Strong productivity is a key factor for boosting real incomes and restraining inflation pressures.

Nonfarm business output (not quite the same as real GDP) increased 1.5% q/q saar in Q1 versus a downwardly revised 1.3% in Q4 (previously 1.5%). By contrast, real GDP grew 2.0% q/q in Q1. Hours worked rebounded in Q1, rising 0.7% after falling an unrevised 0.2% in Q4. Compensation growth slowed to 3.1% in Q1 from an unrevised 6.3% in Q4. Compared to a year ago, compensation growth slowed to 4.2% y/y from 5.0%. On a quarterly basis, compensation growth slowed much more than did productivity growth. Consequently, growth of unit labor costs slowed markedly to 2.3% q/q in Q1 from 4.6% in Q4. The y/y rate of advance for unit labor costs also slowed, to 1.2% y/y, its slowest annual pace since Q3 2023, from 2.4% in Q4. READ MORE

Why are there so many layoffs? Don’t buy the claims

In the back of our minds, we have an image of the decision to lay off employees and why it happens: The business must be in trouble.

Of course, employers can shed workers in other ways. Employees could be fired because of poor performance, and especially, voluntary turnover would shrink headcount just by freezing replacements. Average voluntary turnover in the U.S. is about 33% per year—in a big company, maybe 10%. A year-long hiring freeze would cut a lot of people and jobs. READ MORE

Congress Is Doing Little to Prepare for Potential A.I. Job Losses

Economists aren’t sure if or when artificial intelligence will cause widespread job losses. But they do agree on one thing: The federal safety net isn’t ready for such a shock.

The nearly century-old unemployment system, which provides out-of-work Americans with up to 26 weeks of benefits in most states, is unlikely to cover many of the workers who are most at risk of being displaced by A.I., labor experts warn. READ MORE

‘New Einstein’ vows to find ‘source code of universe’ and change everything

A woman who built her own plane at 12 threatens to de-throne Albert Einstein as the greatest mind of all time - and she doesn’t “want to make billionaires richer.”

32-year-old Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, built a plane when she was 12, was rejected from MIT, persuaded MIT to take her anyway, graduated top of her class in physics, and went on to study at Harvard. READ MORE

How Infrastructure Brought $3.5 Billion to One South Carolina County

In regions across the country, infrastructure investment is catalyzing economic growth. Few places are doing it like Spartanburg, South Carolina. Leveraging its strategic location, Spartanburg has emerged as a strong example of how modern infrastructure can be a magnet for business – drawing in new investment while giving homegrown companies the opportunity to continue to grow and thrive.

At the Chamber’s Keep America Moving Summit, business and economic development leaders from the Spartanburg community shared how its infrastructure is helping to fuel the local economy. In fact, last year alone, Spartanburg County attracted $3.5 billion in capital investment and created over 1,000 new jobs. READ MORE

Elon Musk Admits He Lied to Tesla Customers’ Faces for Years About Self-Driving

After over a decade of promising that fully autonomous driving is right around the corner, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has yet to bring his ambitious vision to fruition.

In early 2019, Tesla started installing a system called Hardware 3 (HW3) in its cars, which according to Musk would enable what the company continues to misleadingly refer to as “Full Self-Driving” (FSD). (As it currently exists, the feature still requires owners to be ready to take over the wheel at any point.) READ MORE