ManpowerGroup claims its Employment Outlook Survey, launched in 1962, is the most extensive forward-looking survey of its kind, unparalleled in size, scope, and longevity, and one of the most trusted indicators of labor market trends worldwide. Looking ahead to the turn of the year, the survey says employers around the globe still plan to hire, but at a slower pace and with fewer additions to headcount than earlier in the pandemic recovery.

Globally, 40% of organizations expect to increase staffing in the first quarter and another 40% plan to keep headcount unchanged, yet the typical company now anticipates adding only eight workers, down steadily from mid‑2025 levels. Large enterprises with 5,000 or more employees have cut their planned hiring roughly in half since the second quarter of 2025, underscoring just how much large employers are tightening belts even as they keep recruiting in priority areas.​

Regional patterns are uneven. North America’s employment outlook has dropped sharply year on year to one of its weakest readings in nearly five years, while South and Central America and the Asia Pacific–Middle East region report comparatively stronger optimism. Europe’s outlook is muted, with only a small decline from last year, suggesting that many employers there are in wait‑and‑see mode rather than embarking on aggressive expansion or deep cuts.​

Talent shortage, not job shortage

Despite cooling hiring volumes, 72% of organizations say they still struggle to find skilled talent, only slightly less than a year ago, reinforcing the idea that there is a talent shortage, not a work shortage. Europe reports the most acute pressure, with nearly three‑quarters of employers citing difficulty filling roles, while South and Central America report the least, though two‑thirds of companies in that region are still affected.​

The survey suggests shortages are particularly severe in the information sector and in public services such as health and social care. In those fields, three‑quarters of organizations report difficulty finding the right people, even as some workers in adjacent roles complain of layoffs and stalled careers, highlighting the growing gap between available workers and the specific skills employers require.​

AI skills are scarce, but AI isn’t the axe

If AI were the primary driver of layoffs, employers would not simultaneously report that the hardest capabilities to find are AI‑related. Yet 20% of organizations say AI model and application development skills are the most difficult to hire for, and another 19% say the same about AI literacy, meaning the ability to use AI tools effectively; in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, these shortages are even more pronounced.​

At the same time, when firms do reduce staff, they mostly blame the economy, not automation. Employers who expect to downsize cite economic challenges, weaker demand, market shifts, and reorganizations as the top reasons for cuts, with automation and efficiency improvements playing a secondary role and affecting only certain roles or functions. Changes in required skills appear at the bottom of the list of stated reasons for staff reductions, suggesting that technology is transforming jobs more often than it is eliminating them outright.​

Skills mismatch at the heart of layoffs

The report points to a widening skills mismatch as a central fault line in the labor market. Employers say the skills needed for their services have changed, creating new roles in some areas while making other roles redundant, and they struggle to rehire for positions that require capabilities many displaced workers do not yet possess. For organizations that are adding staff, nearly a quarter say advancements in technology are driving that hiring, but they need workers with the right expertise to fill those tech‑driven roles.​

Courtesy of ManpowerGroup

Outside of hard technical skills, hiring managers are clear about what they want: Communication, collaboration, and teamwork top the list of soft skills, followed by professionalism, adaptability, and critical thinking. Digital literacy is also rising in importance, especially in information‑heavy sectors, making it harder for workers who lack basic comfort with technology to compete even for nontechnical jobs.​

Rather than replacing workers with machines outright, many employers are trying to bridge the gap by retraining the people they already have. Upskilling and reskilling remain the most common strategies for dealing with talent shortages, ahead of raising wages, turning to contractors, or using AI and automation explicitly to shrink headcount.​

Larger companies are particularly invested in this approach, with the share of organizations prioritizing upskilling rising along with firm size. Employers in every major region report plans to train workers for new tools and workflows, reflecting the recognition that technology’s rapid advance will demand continuous learning rather than one‑time restructurings.​ ​

The big grain of salt for this survey is that it is limited to the next quarter. In the case of a worse long-term downturn, all bets could be off about just how many jobs could be automated with AI tools. This question is beyond the scope of the Manpower survey, but Goldman Sachs economists tackled the issue in October, writing, “History also suggests that the full consequences of AI for the labor market might not become apparent until a recession hits.” David Mericle and Pierfrancesco Mei noted that job growth has been modest in recent quarters while GDP growth has been robust, and that is “likely to be normal to some degree in the years ahead,” noting an aging society and lower immigration. The result is an oxymoron: “jobless growth.”

Until the era of jobless growth fully arrives, though, the Manpower survey suggests that growth will consist of hiring humans who have the right AI skills, whatever those turn out to be.

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.

On Monday, Trump, alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, announced a $12 billion farm aid program, which outlined much-needed relief for farmers who sounded the alarms about increasing input costs and fewer export opportunities amid ongoing trade tensions. Farmers will begin receiving funds by the end of February, Rollins said.

“Now we’re once again in a position where a president is able to put farmers first,” Trump said at a Monday roundtable of farmers and lawmakers. “But unfortunately, I’m the only president that does that.”

While farmers and agricultural economists see the package as a way to move forward after a disappointing harvest season, they fear the precedent of cash bailouts does not provide systemic solutions to a beleaguered industry, and don’t believe the $12 billion gesture is enough to solve agriculture’s deeper challenges.

“We’re talking $12 billion, and while it is a lot of money, in the grand scheme of things, it’s still going to be a Band-Aid on a bigger wound,” Ryan Loy, assistant professor and extension economist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, told Fortune. “How can we triage this situation right now, work on that longer-term solution? That’s really, I think, the overall attitude toward it.”

The one-time payment program will send $11 billion to major row-crop producers growing corn, soybeans, and rice, and the remaining $1 billion will be reserved for specialty crop-growers, such as sugar. Trump said additional aid programs will depend on whether trade improves with China and other countries. While the money is welcome, farmers say they’d rather have the government secure stable markets and trade relations.

“At the end of the day, the farmers, they just want to conduct business, not necessarily have to get these packages to help them out during these times,” Loy said.

Farmers’ struggles

Since Trump introduced expansive import taxes—especially on China, provoking a wave of retaliatory tariffs—farmers have seen input costs increase while export demand and crop prices plummet. 

“It’s been a bit of a roller coaster in terms of not just uncertainty over our global markets and our prices, but also whether or not we were going to see any relief on the input side,” Kyle Jore, an economist, northwest Minnesota-based farmer, and secretary of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association, told Fortune.

Tariffs on farming-related machinery as well as products like seeds and fertilizer sit at 9%, costing U.S. farmers about $33 billion more, according to North Dakota State University’s Agricultural Trade Monitor. That includes a more-than 15% tax on tractors and herbicides.

Soybean farmers, responsible for the U.S.’ biggest agricultural export that makes up about 14% of the country’s total crops sent overseas, have been hit particularly hard by tariffs. Trade disputes with Beijing have disincentivized China from buying American soybeans, and the country has instead turned to South American countries like Argentina and especially Brazil, which makes up about 71% of China’s soybean imports, according to the American Soybean Association.

To be sure, thawing relations between the U.S. and China has enlivened soybean trade. China committed in October to resume orders of U.S. soybeans after halting all purchases in May, promising to import 12 million tons of soybeans by the end of the year, as well as at least 25 million tons in each of the next three years. However, soybean prices have still lagged because of stifled demand, and farmers saw their third straight year of losses, in large part due to tariff turmoil.

According to agricultural economists, Trump’s farm aid program doesn’t hurt, but its benefits are limited: The bailout announcement arrived late in the harvest season, with farmers already booking orders at lower prices, nearly guaranteeing losses for the year. The package also doesn’t address input costs, which Jore sees as critical in improving tight margins.

“A lot of farmers are making purchasing decisions on the ‘26 year crop right now,” he said. “And the hope was that by now, we’d start to see some of the fertilizers and stuff come down, and it’s just not happening to the extent that we were hoping for.”

Changing systems

Joe Maxwell, a Missouri farmer and cofounder and chief strategy officer of agriculture watchdog group Farm Action, said many of the issues plaguing the U.S. agriculture industry—including input costs—go beyond the trade disputes created by the Trump administration. His celebration of the bailout package was tempered by his belief the administration should be addressing policies that for years have been hurting the industry.

“The message we’re wanting to get to Washington, D.C., is that the system is broke,” Maxwell told Fortune. “We need the financial support that the president has announced. But we need Congress to take a serious look at the structure of these programs, because it’s just failed.”

While input costs have risen substantially from tariffs, Maxwell said the reason behind rising fertilizer and seed prices have more to do with corporate consolidations and monopolies dominating the input industry. According to Farm Action’s Agriculture Consolidation Data Hub, three fertilizer companies (CF Industries, Nutrien, and Koch) control 93% of North American nitrogen fertilizer sales in North America. Four seed companies (Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina, and BASF) similarly dominated 60% of the global seed market.

On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order creating a task force to investigate alleged antitrust practices impacting the cost of farming.

“There is a disconnect from the fundamentals in the market, basic supply, demand,” Maxwell said. “One of the fundamentals is competition, and that does not exist in America’s agriculture.” 

Maxwell also noted Congress provides subsidies for export crops, which he argued has created an oversupply problem. That exposes U.S. farmers, such as soybean producers, in instances like trade disputes when export demand plummets, he added. These subsidies also discourage American farmers from planting fruits and vegetables that would make the U.S. less reliant on exports and encourage crop diversification, which lends itself better to regenerative farming practices like crop rotation, which can decrease input costs and ultimately widen profits, Maxwell argued.

The USDA directed Fortune to its press release about the bailout program when asked for comment.

Until the government addresses the purported anticompetitive input industry and how subsidies may be exposing the agriculture industry in times of trade volatility, bailout packages will only go so far, Maxwell said.

“If we don’t go after the antitrust violations that are there, and we don’t change the structure of our farm programs, we will not solve the financial crisis farmers are facing today,” he concluded.

During an event titled “autonomy visualized” at a Tesla location in Miami over the weekend, one of the humanoid robots handing out water bottles fell backwards after making upward motions toward its head with both hands, according to a video posted to Reddit. (This incident was shortly after Russia debuted its first AI-powered robot, which similarly fell onstage at an event). The Tesla event was meant to show off its “Autopilot technology and Optimus,” Electrek reported.

It made the movement after accidentally knocking some of the water bottles it was handing out off a desk, and stood out because of its similarity to a human reaction. While it’s unknown what actually occurred during the incident, the robot’s movement led some online to speculate the robot may have been taking off a VR headset. 

Tesla did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Tesla Optimus
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The incident stood out because Tesla has used human-controlled Optimus robots at prior events. During Tesla’s Robotaxi event last year, attendees interacted with Optimus robots in person. Some played rock, paper, scissors, while others served drinks or posed for photos.

Yet, it turns out—although the company did not advertise it—some of those bots were apparently being controlled remotely by humans. At least one Optimus robot admitted it, saying: “Today, I’m assisted by a human, I’m not yet fully autonomous,” although the LA Timesreported, at the time, using humans to operate the bots may have been due to a late request by Musk to include the robots in the Robotaxi event.

Tesla has previously trained its robots with workers wearing special motion-capture suits and VR headsets.

While Tesla has relied on humans before to showcase their Optimus robots, Musk has often said the robots, in other settings, are not human operated.

In reply to a post on X in October that showed Optimus practicing martial arts, Musk affirmed the robots movements were “AI, not tele-operated.” At the premiere of Tron: Ares that same month, an Optimus robot can also be seen squaring up with actor Jared Leto, a feat which Musk also said was AI-led, not human-controlled.

“Optimus was at the Tron premiere doing kung fu, just up in the open, with Jared Leto. Nobody was controlling it. It was just doing kung fu with Jared Leto at the Tron premier. You can see the videos online,” Musk said during Tesla’s third quarter earnings call. “The funny thing is, a lot of people walked past it thinking it was just a person.” 

Whether the Optimus robots still rely on human assistance is unclear, yet Musk and Tesla have pinned high hopes on the product, which Musk has called “the biggest product of any kind, ever.”

Musk has projected Optimus could represent up to 80% of the company’s total value, and during the company’s third quarter earnings call, the CEO said Tesla would next year start  building a production line that could eventually have an annual capacity of 1 million Optimus robots.