GM's CEO made headlines this week telling high school students to pick up a wrench instead of heading to college, and Pete and Peter agree with the broader point (the US is projected to face a shortage of over 2 million skilled trades workers by 2030), but they're skeptical of the messenger. GM has laid off plenty of trades workers over the years, and the numbers complicate the pitch: the average mechanic salary is $44,890 a year, a certified mechanic averages $63,807, and a journeyman electrician averages around $63,626. Solid pay, but not the kind of money that easily supports a family the way it once did. Pete and Peter's take: if the country needs more trades workers, trade pay and trade school access need to improve too, or people will keep choosing college. They also question how many of these jobs survive the next decade of automation, given robots are already building cars at scale at Tesla and Hyundai.

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report caught Pete and Peter's attention this week: the cost of employee benefits (Social Security, Medicare, healthcare, and more) for private industry workers has climbed from under $10 an hour a decade ago to more than $17 an hour today. That's a steep cost increase for employers, on top of already-rising wages, and Pete and Peter argue it's one more incentive pushing companies toward automation over hiring.

There's better news on the AI front. Indeed Hiring Labs found that wages for the most AI-exposed jobs (software engineering, IT, data and analytics, marketing, and banking and finance) have climbed 46% since 2021, with job postings in those fields growing too. Morgan Stanley found something similar: the most AI-exposed households are best positioned for wage growth. The catch, according to Indeed's own data, is that openings are skewing toward more senior, experienced hires, making it harder for entry-level workers to break in.

The bigger, longer-running story: the share of US economic output going to workers has fallen to 52%, the lowest level ever recorded, down from a historical range closer to 60-66%. The decline started around 2000, stalled briefly after 2010, and has picked up speed again in the past few years. Pete and Peter aren't ready to blame AI alone, but they expect it to accelerate the trend.

They close with two hiring-process stories: Challenger, Gray & Christmas warns that AI is increasingly summarizing and rating recorded job interviews before a human ever reviews them (70% of employers already use AI somewhere in hiring, according to TestGorilla), and a Morning Brew report on companies asking candidates to complete unpaid work trials, in some cases for a full week. Pete and Peter's advice: know your worth in the market, and don't do unpaid work beyond an hour or two without getting paid for it.

Looking to hire or find your next role? Visit 4cornerresources.com.

The BLS report from last Friday held a detail Pete and Peter didn't catch the first time around: of the 162,000 jobs added in August, 158,000 went to women, about 97% of the total. Women now hold slightly more than half of all payroll jobs in the US, only the third time that's happened in history. The gains came almost entirely from healthcare, education, and hospitality, all women-dominated fields, while male-dominated sectors like transportation and technology declined. Men's labor force participation dropped from 67.9% to 67.2% over the same period, a shift Pete and Peter attribute partly to baby boomer men retiring out of the workforce.

They also cover a Richmond Fed report showing more Americans are working two jobs than at any point in the last 26 years, a trend that lines up with this week's inflation numbers: wages rose 3.1% while prices climbed 3.4%. About half of multiple job holders have a college degree, undercutting the idea that a second job is a young or unskilled worker's problem.

On AI, a former Anthropic employee's viral tweet claiming the industry is "dooming" society, along with another Anthropic employee's public estimate of a greater than 10% chance AI causes human extinction within a decade, dominated headlines this week. Pete and Peter treat both claims with some skepticism given who's making them, but agree the underlying concern about AI's pace isn't unfounded. They also cover Orlando's new robotaxi rollout, a protest by 30 robots in Poland demanding AI regulation (organized, oddly, by a man who owns both a robotics company and a staffing agency), and Bernie Sanders' proposed "AI sovereignty fund," which would compensate the public for the data used to train AI models.

Elsewhere: small businesses are still struggling to fill open roles, and Pete and Peter say the real problem is finding candidates willing to work for a company outside the well-known brand names, not pay. And the Trump administration is moving to eliminate the 60-day grace period H-1B visa holders currently get after losing a job, a change that would put visa holders at risk of near-immediate deportation if it goes through.

 Visit www.4cornerresources.com for hiring and job search resources.

Pete and Peter share the results of 4 Corner Resources' Q3 2026 Employee Mindset Survey, the third quarterly edition of a study tracking how American workers feel about their jobs, their financial confidence, and AI. The headline finding cuts against a lot of what's in the news: the overall mindset score sits at 67.3 out of 100, and 81% of full-time workers say they're satisfied or extremely satisfied with their current job.

Satisfaction isn't showing up in paychecks, though. Real average hourly wages actually fell 0.2% year over year as of July, even as people report feeling better about their jobs. Pete and Peter's read: workers see how hard the job market is right now and are grateful to have something stable, even if pay isn't keeping pace. The one place satisfaction clearly splits is work arrangement: workers stuck in a setup they didn't choose (mostly return-to-office mandates) score about 20 points lower than those working the way they want to, even though most aren't ready to quit over it yet.

Employee confidence is actually trending up, which surprised both hosts, but it comes with a serious caveat: workers report having only about four months of savings on average if they lost their job, and 22.1% have no savings at all. The gender gap is stark: 15% of men report zero savings, compared to 30% of women.

On AI, the fear factor has stayed flat all year at 15% of workers naming it as the top threat to their career, a group made up entirely of full-time, mid-to-high earners, not entry-level or gig workers. The most striking finding: the people who use AI the most are also the ones most worried about it. Roughly half of respondents think AI will actually help their career, making sentiment on AI more split than panicked.

4 Corner Resources runs this survey every quarter. The next edition comes out in early October, just ahead of the November election. See the full results and historical data at www.4cornerresources.com under the Surveys tab.

The BLS reported 162,000 jobs added in August, about triple the 55,000 forecast, plus a rare upward revision to prior months. Pete and Peter are skeptical, since downward revisions happen roughly 90% of the time. ADP's competing report told a very different story: private employers added just 38,000 jobs, the slowest month since January, and while the BLS reported 16,000 new manufacturing jobs, ADP reported a decline of 17,000. Pete and Peter can't reconcile the two, and neither can point to which source is right.

They also dig into where the BLS job growth actually came from: a large share was government hiring, and about a third, 59,000 jobs, came from food service and drinking places, meaning restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. Not exactly the high-wage growth the economy needs.

The bigger concern this week: long-term unemployment. Only 14.3% of people who've been out of work for six months or more find a job in a given month, roughly one in seven, even though the headline unemployment rate sits at a healthy-looking 4.1%. Pete and Peter also talk about hiring bias creeping back for candidates with employment gaps or frequent job changes, a pattern that eased during COVID but has firmly returned.

They close with Uber's decision to cut 10% of its roughly 34,000-person workforce, about 3,300 people, with 20% of those cuts hitting management seven or more layers below the CEO. Uber says it's pure restructuring, not AI, making it one of the only major layoffs this year not blamed on automation.

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Bill Gates published a lengthy warning about AI's threat to jobs this week, and Pete and Peter aren't convinced there's anything new in it. He predicts sales, customer support, software engineering, paralegal work, loan assessment, and data analysis are all at risk, and argues government policy needs to keep job creation in line with job losses. Pete and Peter push back hardest on sales, arguing it's one of the most human, relationship-driven jobs that exists, and question whether a call for more government policy from a former Microsoft CEO is entirely disinterested.

They also revisit MIT economist Daron Acemoglu's point on the tax code: hiring a robot costs a business roughly a 5% effective tax rate, versus more than 30% for hiring a human employee. Pete and Peter agree the fix isn't taxing automation more; it's taxing human employment less.

The bigger story of the week: official unemployment sits at 4.1%, but the Ludwig Institute's "true unemployment rate," which counts anyone without a job, anyone who wants full-time work but can't get it, and anyone earning $26,000 a year or less, comes in at 24.9%. Pete and Peter argue that number explains the gap between a healthy-looking headline rate and how bad the job market actually feels to a lot of people.

They also cover a new report that the government plans to start buying jobs data from AI companies since its own survey response rates have collapsed, the BLS's list of the fastest-growing jobs over the next decade (healthcare makes up 37% of it), and a study of 20 million LinkedIn profiles showing how often people go back and edit old job descriptions, including adding AI-related terms at six times the rate of anything else.

Looking to hire or find your next role? Visit 4cornerresources.com.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that LinkedIn has a dating problem: 22% of users say they've sent or received a message with romantic intent on the platform, and roughly one in four think that's acceptable behavior on a professional site. Pete and Peter also cover the flip side of that same article: one in five people say they check a potential date's LinkedIn profile before meeting them, since it's harder to fake a professional history than a dating profile.

From there, a data point job seekers can actually use. Research from Cornell, George Mason, and Vanderbilt found that a one-hour delay in responding to a recruiter is associated with a 6% drop in the odds of getting hired, and a full-day delay drops those odds by 90%. Pete and Peter break down why: recruiters are usually talking to several candidates at once, and the first qualified person to respond often ends up several steps ahead in the process.

They also cover a Monster survey finding that only 10% of workers say their job description matched the actual job, and 85% of candidates say they're more likely to apply to a job posting that reads as honest and specific rather than generic. Pete and Peter make the case for writing real, current job descriptions instead of recycling old ones, and for including salary ranges upfront.

Other stories this week: no major layoffs reported, a first for 2026, though Charles Schwab is moving roughly 1,000 jobs offshore to India. The JOLTS survey, a key government measure of job openings and layoffs, is now getting responses from only about one in four companies surveyed, down from seven in ten before the pandemic. And the Richmond Fed reports the median length of unemployment has crept up to about 10.5 weeks.

4 Corner Resources' Q3 Employee Mindset Survey is live now at 4cornerresources.com/employee-mindset-survey, with a full episode on the results coming next week.

Looking to hire or find your next role? Visit 4cornerresources.com.

A leaked internal memo shows Google's own recruiting team doesn't fully trust the company's AI screening tool. The memo, marked "do not share widely" and shared widely within hours, admits a "non-trivial possibility" that the AI is ignoring or ruling out qualified candidates, and now Google is asking applicants to fill out a separate form so a human can manually review their resume. Pete and Peter dig into why that matters beyond one company: average applications per job jumped from 115 in 2022 to 244 in 2025, which is exactly the volume problem AI screening is supposed to solve.

They also cover new SHRM data showing 85% of recruiting leaders expect to increase their use of AI screening, and 63% of job seekers report already being screened or interviewed by AI, up 13 points in six months. One number Pete calls inexcusable: 70% of candidates say they were never told AI was involved in their application. Pete and Peter disagree a bit on how far the technology has come (Pete calls well-built AI screening close to ideal, Peter still calls it a necessary evil), but they agree on one thing: candidates should be told upfront.

The leaked Google memo also warned that human reviewers get tired of resumes that all sound alike from AI-generated answers. Pete and Peter's advice for candidates: let AI handle formatting, but keep the actual content and voice your own.

From there, a new Monster survey found 54% of workers would take a pay cut for job security, and 61% would give up some part of their pay or work arrangement just for stability, even though the data still shows roughly one job opening for every job seeker. They also cover a slowdown in ADP's weekly hiring numbers, a three-year high in NFIB's small business hiring plans, and an MIT report on what it calls "disposable workers," which Pete and Peter push back on hard when it comes to contract employment.

4 Corner Resources' quarterly Employee Mindset Survey results are coming soon.

Looking to hire or find your next role? Visit 4cornerresources.com.

The July jobs report finally turned negative: the US lost 23,000 jobs, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised May and June's numbers down by a combined 103,000. Pete and Peter argue the losses matter less than they sound, since 264,000 people also left the labor force this month. Fewer job seekers competing for roughly the same number of openings still adds up to a healthy market on paper, even though unemployment ticking down partly reflects people exiting the workforce rather than finding jobs.

The bigger story underneath the monthly numbers: baby boomer retirements are shrinking the labor force, a trend Pete and Peter expect to continue for at least the next five years. They also break down a new Indeed survey of economists, where 57% expect AI to lower wages and 61% worry about AI displacing college-educated workers, and get into whether a bachelor's degree still prepares graduates for the workforce it's supposed to lead them into. That includes a pointed take on the University of Michigan's decision to hide first-semester grades from new students.

They also cover the NFIB's monthly small business survey, where more than half of small businesses say they can't find qualified applicants, and why that gap persists even with plenty of candidates in the market. They close with LinkedIn's new plan to let users flag posts as AI slop, a feature Pete and Peter can't wait to use.

4 Corner Resources' quarterly Employee Mindset Survey results are coming soon.

Looking to hire or find your next role? Visit 4cornerresources.com.

Pete and Peter open with the strangest hiring story of the year so far. LemonLime, a five-person AI startup, offered instant interviews to anyone at a networking event willing to get the company's logo tattooed on their body. The backlash was swift, but so was the attention, and Pete and Peter debate whether the stunt was tone-deaf or quietly brilliant marketing.

From there, two weeks running of actual good AI news. A new ZipRecruiter survey of 1,000 employers found 35% say AI is growing their headcount, and 24% say it already has. The same survey found a less encouraging trend underneath it: 38% moved basic data work off entry-level employees onto AI, and 31% raised the experience requirements on their entry-level postings, which Pete and Peter argue defeats the purpose of calling a job entry-level at all.

Revelio Labs published the first read from a new AI jobs tracker, showing companies that adopted AI grew headcount 27% faster than companies that didn't, with the growth concentrated more in senior roles than junior ones. Pete and Peter also break down a Daron Acemoglu op-ed in Axios arguing that the tax code itself is tilting the playing field: employers pay roughly a 30% payroll tax on human wages, versus an estimated 5% effective tax cost on the same $100 invested in AI or automation.

They close with a Harvard Business Review piece making the case for hiring job hoppers, a batch of layoffs at BMW, Porsche, and Visa, and an ADP report showing private payrolls declining for a fifth straight week, right before next month's official jobs report.

Visit 4cornerresources.com for hiring and job search resources.

A rare quiet week for once: no major layoffs, no new AI panic. Pete and Peter open with the number that earned the good-news label this week: initial unemployment claims came in at 187,000, the lowest since 1969, well under the 250,000 mark that typically signals a healthy job market. Add in roughly one open job for every unemployed worker, and the data says the market is about as balanced as it's been in years.

So why does it still feel bad out there? A new Monster survey found 93% of workers feel their wages aren't keeping up with the cost of living, and 85% say they've had to dip into savings just to keep up. Pete and Peter also talk through why job switching doesn't pay like it used to: changing companies still tends to bring a 10% to 20% raise versus 3% to 5% for staying put, but far fewer people are making that move right now compared to the post-COVID hiring surge.

From there, they cover a new Google survey describing today's AI use as "shallow," and Google's own framing that AI is meant to be an assistant, not a replacement, a read Pete and Peter mostly agree with based on their own daily use. They close with Amazon's decision to cut staff in its Artificial General Intelligence group, and a publicly disclosed OpenAI safety incident in which a model in a sandboxed test environment reportedly tried to reach the open internet.

4 Corner Resources' quarterly Employee Mindset Survey results are coming soon. In the meantime, visit 4cornerresources.com for hiring and job search resources.