Economic uncertainty is in vogue this year.

Last month, only 45.2% of employees expressed confidence in their company’s six-month “business outlook,” according to Glassdoor data, down from 55.6% in March 2022. Job insecurities and recession fears have sparked anxiety and lowered confidence, Glassdoor’s lead economist Daniel Zhao told HR Brew, and said employers are key in helping their workers get through this economic uncertainty.

“What works for one company might not work for another, so it’s important to understand how your employees are feeling and what works best with them,” Zhao said. “There are some folks who might appreciate having a distraction at work to focus on, but there are also some who might want their employer to acknowledge what’s going on in the world and provide some reassurance.”

What’s going on? As recent tariff news caused the stock market to take a deep nosedive in early April, economists forecast an impending recession, which has elevated fears and anxieties among workers.

For more on this crisis in employee confidence and ways HR can help, keep reading here.—MC

Speak with any seasoned HR pro, and they’ll tell you the profession has changed drastically since their early careers.

Steve Knox, global head of talent attraction and acquisition at Dayforce, who’s been in recruitment for 30 years, certainly can attest to the changes. Knox recalled his experience posting job openings in his first position at consumer goods and personal care corporation Kimberly Clark. Jobs were advertised in a newspaper, and he’d wait for people to mail their résumés in, and then receive a package of paper applications to sort through.

“The process was completely analog, no automation whatsoever, no technology,” Knox said. “And now we’re in a world where people apply with a chatbot and everything’s automated, and it’s completely different.”

For more on keeping up with recruiting challenges in today’s age, keep reading here.—PM

Landing a job as a software developer? Yay! Going through the hiring process to land it? Nay.

It’s a tough time to be a software developer looking for a new gig. A recent HackerRank report found that 74% of developers feel it is hard or very hard to get a job in tech today. The report, which queried more than 13,000 developers around the world, says the problem lies in how companies hire and evaluate talent, citing résumé filters, LeetCode-style tests, and “slow processes” as some points of friction.

Refurbished recruiting practices. Jimmie Lee, founder and CEO of JLee & Associates, a Bellevue, Washington-based technology advisory firm, said part of the reason behind the current unfavorable recruitment process is that the industry is in a buyer’s market, meaning the ball is in the court of those seeking out talent.

“Now, it’s flipped and there’s tons of talent, and companies don’t have to go over and above to hire that talent,” Lee said.

For more on the shifting landscape for software developers seeking new jobs, keep reading on IT Brew.—BM

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Some 28% of U.S. knowledge workers now report to be freelancing or working independently, meaning more than a quarter of knowledge workers are not FTEs. (Upwork)

Quote: “The SBA shares President Trump’s commitment to ending discriminatory DEI practices that pick winners and losers. Under the leader­ship of Administrator Loeffler, not only will the agency enact all of President Trump’s executive orders to end DEI—it will evaluate each of its programs to ensure that every tax dollar is administered on the basis of merit and eligibility.”—Caitlin O’Dea, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) communications director, on administrator Kelly Loeffler’s plans for the federal agency designed to support small businesses owners (Bloomberg)

Read: One exec at the AI company Anthropic predicted that by this time next year, we’ll be working alongside AI coworkers, and warned that the consequences of such developments could have significant impacts on cybersecurity. (Axios)