LocalWork News

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  • Performance Management Software Shifts From Annual Reviews to Continuous Feedback

    Performance management platforms are seeing a wave of new demand as more employers abandon the traditional annual review cycle in favor of continuous, real-time feedback tools. According to usage data reviewed by LocalWork News, HR technology vendors that offer lightweight check-in and goal-tracking features have seen adoption climb sharply over the past year.

    The shift reflects a broader recognition among HR leaders that once-a-year reviews often fail to capture performance accurately and can leave managers and employees disconnected for months at a time. Newer platforms instead prompt short, frequent conversations between managers and direct reports, paired with dashboards that track progress against quarterly goals.

    Manager Adoption Remains the Biggest Hurdle

    Despite the enthusiasm from HR departments, vendors report that manager adoption is often the limiting factor in how successful these tools become. Continuous feedback systems require managers to spend more time on smaller, more frequent conversations, a habit that takes time to build in organizations accustomed to a single annual sit-down.

    To address this, several vendors have added AI-assisted prompts that suggest talking points or summarize recent work activity ahead of check-ins, reducing the prep time required from managers. Early customers say the combination of lighter cadence and automated support has improved completion rates for reviews significantly compared to legacy annual cycles.

  • Layoff Announcements Cool in Early July, But Hiring Managers Stay Cautious

    The pace of publicly announced layoffs slowed in late June and early July, offering a modest sign of stabilization after a turbulent first half of 2026 for several industries, according to tracking data reviewed by LocalWork News. Total announced job cuts fell compared to the prior month, with technology and media companies accounting for a smaller share of the total than earlier in the year.

    Despite the slowdown in cuts, recruiters say hiring managers remain cautious about adding headcount. Many companies that went through restructuring earlier in the year are still operating under hiring freezes or requiring senior leadership sign-off for any new requisition, even when the immediate business need is clear.

    A Cautious Middle Ground

    The result is a labor market that is neither shedding jobs rapidly nor adding them with confidence. Recruiting teams describe a “wait and see” posture among finance and executive leadership, with many organizations preferring to redistribute work among existing staff rather than commit to new hires until there is more clarity on demand for the rest of the year.

    For job seekers, recruiters note that the slowdown in layoffs is a mildly encouraging signal, but caution that a quieter layoff cycle has not yet translated into a meaningful pickup in new job openings.

  • Skilled Trades Wages Climb Again as Labor Shortage Persists

    Wages for electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, and welders rose again this quarter, continuing a multi-year trend driven by a persistent gap between the demand for skilled trades workers and the number of credentialed candidates available to fill open roles, according to data reviewed by LocalWork News.

    Infrastructure projects, data center construction, and reshored manufacturing activity are all competing for a limited pool of tradespeople, pushing employers to raise starting pay and offer signing bonuses in markets where they previously had little trouble filling positions. Union apprenticeship programs report waitlists in several regions, underscoring how training capacity has struggled to keep pace with demand.

    Employers Broaden Their Search

    Facing longer time-to-fill windows, some employers are expanding recruitment beyond their traditional local labor pools, offering relocation assistance and per diem arrangements to attract workers willing to travel for extended projects. Workforce management and scheduling software providers say demand from trades-focused employers has grown as companies look for better tools to manage distributed and travel-heavy crews.

    Industry groups continue to push for expanded vocational training funding, arguing that without a larger pipeline of new tradespeople, wage growth in the sector is likely to continue outpacing broader wage trends for the foreseeable future.

  • Entry-Level Hiring Tightens as Employers Favor Experienced Candidates

    Recent graduates and other early-career job seekers are facing a noticeably tighter market this summer, according to hiring data reviewed by LocalWork News. Postings explicitly targeting candidates with zero to two years of experience have declined for several consecutive months, even in sectors where overall hiring has held up.

    Recruiters point to a few converging factors. Automation and AI tools have taken over some of the routine tasks historically assigned to junior staff, prompting some employers to hire fewer entry-level workers while asking existing teams to absorb more responsibility. At the same time, a wave of experienced professionals affected by earlier rounds of restructuring has increased the supply of mid-career candidates willing to accept roles they might once have considered a step down.

    Employers Reassess Entry-Level Pipelines

    Some larger employers are responding by investing more heavily in structured apprenticeship and rotational programs, treating early-career hiring as a longer-term pipeline investment rather than a way to fill immediate gaps. Workforce development and training platforms report growing interest from employers looking to build internal capability rather than compete for a shrinking pool of experienced hires.

    For entry-level candidates, recruiters advise leaning on internships, certifications, and demonstrable project work to stand out in a field where experience, even a small amount, is increasingly the deciding factor.

  • Remote Job Postings Stabilize After Three Years of Decline

    After three consecutive years of shrinking as a share of total job postings, fully remote listings appear to have found a floor. New data reviewed by LocalWork News shows remote roles holding steady at roughly one in eight postings on major job boards, matching the level seen at the start of the year.

    The stabilization comes as many large employers have completed their return-to-office transitions and settled into longer-term hybrid or in-office policies. Companies that were going to mandate a return largely did so in 2024 and 2025, leaving the current remote-role base composed mostly of organizations that have made distributed work a permanent part of their operating model.

    A Divide by Function and Company Size

    Remote postings remain concentrated in software engineering, customer support, and specialized professional services, while manufacturing, healthcare delivery, and retail roles remain overwhelmingly on-site by necessity. Smaller and mid-sized companies continue to lean on remote hiring as a way to compete for talent against larger employers offering higher base pay, using location flexibility as a differentiator in job postings and candidate outreach.

    Recruiting platforms note that candidate interest in remote roles remains disproportionately high relative to supply, meaning postings that do offer remote work continue to attract significantly larger applicant pools than comparable on-site roles.

  • July Jobs Snapshot: Hiring Momentum Holds Steady Heading Into Second Half of 2026

    Early July data suggests the U.S. labor market is entering the second half of 2026 on relatively stable footing, even as individual sectors continue to move in different directions. Job board activity tracked by LocalWork News shows overall posting volume roughly flat compared to a month ago, a signal that employers are neither aggressively expanding headcount nor pulling back sharply.

    Recruiting teams describe the current environment as “steady but selective.” Hiring managers are still filling roles, but requisitions are taking longer to close as approval chains lengthen and finance teams scrutinize new headcount requests more closely than they did earlier in the year.

    What Employers Are Watching

    Compensation benchmarking tools are seeing increased usage as employers try to calibrate offers in a market where candidate expectations and internal budgets don’t always line up. Recruiters also report that counteroffers remain common, particularly for specialized technical and healthcare roles, extending time-to-fill metrics across the board.

    For job seekers, the message from recruiting platforms is consistent: opportunities exist, but patience and flexibility on both compensation and role scope are increasingly important in a market that rewards precision over volume in applications.

  • Jobs Market Update: Hiring Slows in Tech, Accelerates in Healthcare and Skilled Trades

    The U.S. labor market continued its sector-divergence trend in June 2026, with technology sector hiring posting its fifth consecutive month of contraction while healthcare and skilled trades employers report near-record open positions. The bifurcated job market is creating new challenges for recruiting teams, job boards, and workforce planners trying to calibrate sourcing strategies.

    Technology job postings on major boards fell 12% month-over-month in June, driven largely by continued headcount optimization at large software companies and a slowdown in venture-backed startup hiring. The decline was steepest in roles related to software engineering, product management, and data science — categories that surged during the 2020–2022 expansion.

    Healthcare and Trades Tell a Different Story

    By contrast, healthcare employer postings rose 9% in June, led by demand for registered nurses, medical technologists, and home health aides. The aging U.S. population and the retirement of pandemic-era healthcare workers are creating structural shortages that recruiting technology alone cannot solve.

    Skilled trades — electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, and welders — also saw a significant uptick. Infrastructure spending and reshoring manufacturing activity are driving demand that far exceeds the available supply of credentialed workers. Workforce development platforms and apprenticeship management software are seeing increased customer interest as employers look beyond traditional ATS workflows to build talent pipelines from the ground up.

  • The Great Unbundling: Why Mid-Market Companies Are Ditching Their All-in-One HCM Suites

    For years, the conventional wisdom in HR technology purchasing was to consolidate on a single platform. Buy the big HCM suite, integrate everything, and enjoy the operational simplicity of one vendor relationship. That logic is now being challenged by a growing wave of mid-market HR leaders who are “unbundling” their tech stacks in favor of best-of-breed point solutions.

    A recent survey of 1,200 HR technology buyers found that 47% of mid-market companies (defined as 250–2,500 employees) plan to replace at least one module of their current HCM suite with a standalone solution in the next 18 months. The top reasons cited: better user experience, faster product innovation cycles, and frustration with delayed feature releases from large legacy vendors.

    What’s Driving the Shift

    The rise of API-first platforms and HR data infrastructure tools has made integration far easier than it was five years ago. Middleware solutions that connect disparate HR systems have reduced the technical overhead that previously made best-of-breed stacks unattractive for smaller IT teams.

    Modern ATS platforms, in particular, have been the beneficiaries of this trend. Standalone applicant tracking systems consistently outperform the recruiting modules embedded in large HCM platforms on user satisfaction scores, according to G2 and Capterra review data analyzed by LocalWork News.

  • New Research: Candidates Who Apply Through Mobile Devices Have 34% Lower Offer Acceptance Rates

    A new study examining 4.2 million job applications across 280 employer career sites has uncovered a troubling data point for talent acquisition teams: candidates who complete applications on mobile devices accept job offers at significantly lower rates than those who apply on desktop. The gap — 34% lower acceptance rates for mobile applicants — persists even after controlling for job type, compensation level, and geographic market.

    The research, conducted by a workforce analytics firm in partnership with three large enterprise ATS vendors, suggests that friction in the mobile application experience creates a negative first impression that colors candidates’ perception of the employer throughout the hiring process.

    The Candidate Experience Problem

    Despite years of conversation about mobile-first recruiting, the study found that 68% of employer career sites still require candidates to upload a resume file — a task that is significantly harder on mobile — and 54% include form fields that do not render correctly on smartphone screens. Average mobile application completion time was 22 minutes, compared to 14 minutes on desktop.

    ATS vendors are responding. Several platforms announced updates this quarter that enable one-tap applications using LinkedIn or Indeed profiles, reducing friction for mobile candidates. Employers who deployed these integrations saw mobile offer acceptance rates improve by an average of 19 percentage points.

  • HR Tech Funding Roundup: $2.1B Invested Across 34 Deals in Q2 2026

    The HR technology sector continued to attract significant venture capital in the second quarter of 2026, with $2.1 billion deployed across 34 deals according to data compiled by LocalWork News. While the total represents a modest 8% decline from Q1, deal volume held steady as investors showed preference for Series B and C rounds in established platforms over early-stage bets.

    Workforce analytics and skills intelligence platforms attracted the largest share of funding, capturing 31% of total capital. AI-native recruiting tools came in second at 24%, followed by employee experience platforms at 19%.

    Notable Deals This Quarter

    The quarter’s largest raise was a $340 million Series D for a workforce planning platform that helps enterprises model headcount scenarios against financial forecasts. The round was led by a growth equity firm with existing positions in several HR tech unicorns.

    On the earlier stage side, a stealth-mode ATS startup founded by former Lever and Greenhouse executives raised $22 million in seed funding on the thesis that most enterprise ATS platforms are overbuilt for the 90% of companies with under 500 employees.

    M&A activity also picked up, with two strategic acquisitions of skills taxonomy companies by larger HCM suite vendors looking to strengthen their internal mobility features.