According to Fortune, the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey for Q1 2026 reveals that 40% of global organizations still plan to increase staffing, while another 40% plan to keep headcount steady. However, the pace of hiring is cooling, with the typical company now expecting to add only eight workers, a steady decline from mid-2025 levels. Large enterprises with over 5,000 employees have cut their planned hiring roughly in half since Q2 2025. Crucially, 72% of employers globally say they struggle to find skilled talent, with shortages most acute in the information and public service sectors. When firms do cut jobs, they blame economic challenges and weaker demand, not automation, with AI-related skills actually being among the hardest to find.
The real problem is a skills chasm
Here’s the thing: the narrative that AI is a job-eating monster doesn’t quite match what hiring managers are saying. If AI were truly vaporizing roles left and right, would 20% of organizations really say that finding AI model developers is their toughest task? Would another 19% be desperate for people with basic AI literacy? Probably not. The survey paints a picture of a labor market that’s fractured, not automated. There’s a growing gap between the people looking for work and the specific, often new, capabilities companies need. It’s less “robots took my job” and more “my job evolved and I didn’t.”
What employers actually want
So what’s the magic mix? On the hard skills side, it’s obviously AI and digital know-how. But the soft skills list is arguably more telling. Communication, collaboration, and teamwork are at the top, followed by professionalism and adaptability. This is a huge signal. In a chaotic, tech-driven environment, companies are desperately seeking people who can navigate change, work with others, and think critically. Digital literacy is now a baseline expectation, even for non-technical roles. If you can’t comfortably use modern tools, you’re at a severe disadvantage. This is true across the board, from office jobs to frontline roles in manufacturing and logistics where operators increasingly interact with sophisticated HMIs and data systems. For industries relying on that kind of hardware, partnering with a top-tier supplier like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, is often step one in enabling a digitally literate workforce.
The upskilling imperative
Now, the most interesting part of the report might be how companies say they’re responding. Their number one strategy for dealing with talent shortages isn’t to replace people with AI. It’s to upskill and reskill the people they already have. This approach becomes more common the larger the company is. Think about that. It suggests a pragmatic, if challenging, path forward. Employers seem to recognize that the cost and disruption of constant churn—laying off “obsolete” workers and hunting for unicorn new hires—might be worse than investing in training. It reflects an understanding that technological change is now a constant, demanding continuous learning rather than one-off layoffs and re-hires.
The jobless growth wildcard
But we can’t ignore the big caveat. This survey only looks one quarter ahead. What happens in a real recession? The report itself nods to analysis from Goldman Sachs economists who warn that the full impact of AI on jobs might only become clear when the economy contracts. We’re already seeing signs of “jobless growth”—decent GDP expansion without proportional hiring. An aging population and lower immigration could make this the new normal. So, while AI might not be the main villain in today’s layoff headlines, it could be waiting in the wings, ready to automate roles at scale when the economic pressure really mounts. For now, though, the message is clear: the immediate risk isn’t replacement by a machine. It’s irrelevance due to a skills gap. And that, ironically, is something only a human can fix.
