Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Sunday, July 5, 2026
Labor Force Participation Falls to 61.5%, Lowest Outside Covid Era Since 1976
The U.S. labor force shrank by 720,000 people in June, dragging the participation rate down 0.3 percentage point to 61.5%, its lowest level since March 2021, CNBC reported Thursday. Excluding the Covid-era job market, the rate is the lowest since June 1976. The biggest plunge came from prime-age workers between 25 and 54, whose participation fell 0.6 point to 83.3%, the lowest since December 2023. Mike Reid, head of U.S. economics at RBC, called the shrinking labor force a “massive exodus” driven by multiple factors. Nonfarm payrolls grew by just 57,000 in June, down from May’s downwardly revised 129,000.
Sources: CNBC CNBC (June Jobs Report) Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
TikTok Cuts Hundreds of Trust and Safety Jobs Worldwide as AI Takes Over Moderation
TikTok is cutting hundreds of trust and safety jobs worldwide as it shifts more content moderation to artificial intelligence, Cybernews reported Friday. The company confirmed cuts at the start of July in the division that moderates harmful content, affecting employees in Singapore, other parts of Asia and Indonesia, along with roughly 300 roles in Dublin, Ireland. TikTok says it is reorganizing trust and safety teams to strengthen its global operating model, claiming AI took down 97% of all harmful content between January and April, with 99% of those removals happening before any user saw the content. Human moderators and unions warn AI mistakes could weaken user safety and legal compliance.
IT Unemployment Falls Below 3% for First Time This Year, CompTIA Finds
Employers across all industries added nearly 50,000 IT workers in June, pushing unemployment among tech occupations down to 2.9% — below 3% for the first time this year, compared with the national rate of 4.2% — according to a CompTIA analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday. Companies posted more than 280,000 new tech job listings during the month, and active postings topped 600,000 for a second consecutive month. “Even as some tech companies announce layoffs, employers in other industries are accelerating digital transformation initiatives and moving from AI experimentation to implementation,” said Seth Robinson, CompTIA’s vice president for industry research.
Sources: CIO Dive CompTIA via PR Newswire Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Microsoft Launches $2.5 Billion Frontier Company to Embed 6,000 Engineers With Customers
Microsoft is spending $2.5 billion to launch the Microsoft Frontier Company, a new operating business that will embed 6,000 engineering experts within customer operations to deploy AI systems at scale, Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business, announced Thursday in a company blog post. Customers including Land O’Lakes and Unilever are already using the service. The announcement comes two days after AWS unveiled a $1 billion forward-deployed engineering organization. Gartner analyst Alex Coqueiro told CIO Dive that 85% of tech providers will establish forward-deployed engineering programs as core AI delivery models by the end of the year, and that competition for the scarce skillset is already intensifying.
Sources: CIO Dive Microsoft Blog Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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