Good morning. As CEO of Recruit Holdings, the $23 billion-a-year parent of Indeed and Glassdoor, among others, Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba thinks a lot about global labor markets. I spoke with him in Davos last week about what he’s seeing in terms of hiring, firing and the risks for companies trying to leverage new technologies.
The headlines for me?
- Only a small fraction of layoffs are directly attributed to AI so far. Yet perceptions among workers (especially Gen Z) are far more pessimistic, feeding distrust and “AI anxiety.” “People are screaming that AI is replacing people. That’s totally not true. We’re not seeing that kind of data at all,” he told me. (U.S. employment data and my conversations with other leaders reinforce that conclusion.)
- Tech layoffs are highly visible but represent a small share of total employment; he believes they reflect post‑pandemic over‑hiring more than AI‑driven job destruction.
- Big changes are coming in terms of how leaders source and assess talent. AI is creating a host of new challenges for employers, from generating a tsunami of automated applications—often in the millions for Fortune 500 companies—to enabling applicants to hide deficits in writing, thinking and analysis because of LLMs. As a result, sites like Indeed are playing a bigger role in verifying qualified candidates to narrow the funnel, even doing basic background checks upfront and helping employers assess how the roles they’re hiring for are likely to evolve. “Your team is spending a crazy amount of time on this,” he said. “This year, I think CEOs will be a little more sophisticated about the ROI.”
And how is he preparing for this shift? For one thing, his teams are designing AI agents to reach out to job seekers on behalf of employers on his platforms, to screen and interact with applicants. Not only does that ease the workload and cut costs for HR teams, it creates better interactions with applicants and hopefully more affection for the employer’s brand, even if they don’t end up getting hired. For more insights, check out Indeed’s latest update on U.S. job trends for this year and Glassdoor’s 2026 “Worklife Trends” report.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
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S&P 500 futures are up 0.32% this morning. The last session closed up 0.41%. STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.47% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.39% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.05%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.26%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 1.69%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.66%. Bitcoin was at $89K.
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Amazon and JPMorgan led the Fortune 500 in returning to the office 5 days a week. Now they’re leading a coworking comeback by Jacqueline Munis
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Claire Zillman and Lee Clifford.
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