Breaking Job News: The Shutdown Pay Deal That Is Shaking Washington & More Job Cuts

In today’s Breaking Job News headlines: Job cuts quietly rise, AI rewrites millions of roles, and Washington finally hits reset.

The latest ADP data reveals private employers are trimming headcount as 2025 winds down. Small weekly losses that hint at a larger story: caution is back in the job market. Companies aren’t collapsing; they’re calculating, pausing to reassess budgets, automation, and 2026 workforce plans.

Meanwhile, Gartner forecasts that 32 million jobs will be transformed by AI every year. Forget the “AI will take your job” panic; this is about task reshuffling and skill reinvention. Host Pete Newsome unpacks what it means for employers building lean, AI-first teams and for workers learning to partner with technology instead of competing with it.

And in Washington, the Senate strikes a bipartisan deal to end the longest government shutdown in history, restoring pay, reversing 4,200 layoffs, and stabilizing budgets that ripple through the broader economy. When the government steadies, hiring confidence follows.

 💬  What do you think: Are companies moving too fast, or not fast enough, with AI adoption?

News Articles:
1. ADP's "The NER Pulse": https://www.adpresearch.com/the-ner-pulse/
2. Gartner Says Leaders Must Create Four Scenarios for Human-AI Collaboration at Work: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-11-11-gartner-says-leaders-must-create-four-scenarios-for-human-artificial-intelligence-collaboration-at-work
3. The Tentative Senate Deal: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/11/tentative-senate-deal-reaffirms-back-pay-reverses-rifs-for-federal-employees/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewsome/
Blog Articles: https://www.4cornerresources.com/blog

Episode Transcript

Pete Newsome (00:00):
Today's job market headlines include impending job
chaos and some good news forfederal workers.
But first, ADP ResearchInstitute reported that for the
four weeks ending October 25th,private employment declined an
average of more than 11,000 jobsper week.
The data is drawn from ADP'sNational Employment Report
Pulse.
It's something new that they'redoing weekly, and of course

(00:22):
it's preliminary and subject torevision as additional payroll
information becomes available.
All these reports should saythat because we know how often
those revisions happen.
But for this data specifically,the trend was positive in early
October.
I mean, things look like theywere actually trending up for a
bit, but for the past coupleweeks now they've been heading

(00:42):
in the wrong direction.
And even a modest decline likethis really does speak volumes
about where employer confidencecurrently stands as we head into
the end of the year.
And it's kind of the samestory, different day lately.
And that story is uncertainty,whether it's inflation, tariffs,
rate cuts, the shutdown,hopefully that's going to end.

(01:04):
It looks like it will.
But all that is combined into alack of consumer demand.
And that's just going to impactwhat happens as we end the year
and as we go into next year for2026 planning.
So look, I hate saying hopebecause we know that that's not
a strategy, but I'll say itanyway.

(01:24):
I hope that we see thisturnaround soon.
I hope that we get somestability from what the Trump
administration is doing, fromwhat uh all the infighting
that's going on with um in theSenate right now.
I don't have a lot of umexpectations that that's going
to happen, but we do need to seejust some stability for the

(01:47):
market to start heading in theright direction.
So fingers crossed that thatwill happen.
In other news, AI may not takeyour job right away, but chaos
is coming.
At least according to newresearch from Gartner.
They say we're entering aperiod called jobs chaos, where
between 2028 and 2029, more than32 million jobs per year will
be reconfigured or combined withAI.

(02:10):
On a daily basis, 150,000 jobswill evolve through upskilling,
while another 70,000 will berewritten entirely.
Gartner outlined four scenariosthat they say represent AI's
ripple effect on jobs andorganizations.
Scenario one is fewer workersdoing the work AI can't.
AI will handle most of thetasks and humans will fill in

(02:30):
the gaps.
The example they use iscustomer service.
Scenario two, fewer to noworkers in AI-first enterprises.
This is where highly autonomousoperations will exist with
minimal human oversight.
Scenario three, many busyworkers using AI to work better
and do more.
Humans will leverage AI as atool to improve existing

(02:52):
workflows.
And then scenario four, manyinnovative workers combining
with AI to push new frontiers.
This is where AI and humanswill collaborate to solve
complex challenges such asbreakthroughs in medicine.
Now, Gartner analyst HelenPoidevin said no matter which
scenario executive leaderspursue, they must be ready to

(03:12):
support all four.
The ripple effects of AI willmake each scenario a reality.
Also in the press release, theysay AI first will only succeed
when it's people first.
Now that sounds nice and neat.
Seems so clean, doesn't it?
But I'm just not convinced.
Are we going to be in an age ofmore collaboration or will it
ultimately be competition?

(03:32):
We know right now companies areactively trying to find ways to
increase efficiency, savecosts, do more with fewer
workers by leveraging AI.
And while a lot of people don'tsubscribe to that possibility
at all, they think it's justit's it's a lot of hype in the
AI space right now.
Um I I'm on the I'm on theother side of that argument.

(03:53):
I think that this is going tobe inevitable with AI becoming
just increasingly moreprevalent, and I believe that's
going to pick up speed a lotfaster than most anticipate.
And so the takeaway from this,and when I see all these
reports, is look, we can'tpredict what's going to happen,
but we have to be willing toadapt.

(04:14):
Now let's close on a positivenote.
After missing two paychecks andfacing layoffs, federal
employees finally get some goodnews.
The Senate's new bipartisanagreement to end the government
shutdown includes back pay forall federal employees and
reverses more than 4,200reductions in force, which were
the layoffs that took effectwhen the shutdown began on
October 1st.
Wow, it's really been a longtime.

(04:35):
Union leaders called the move awin for fairness, stability,
and talent retention.
The shutdown, as we all know,was a political disagreement,
right?
It was over healthcare, hadnothing to do with the workers.

(04:58):
And so, regardless of whichside of that argument you're on,
I'm sure everyone can agreethat no employee should be a
pawn in a political negotiation.
Not that that's ever happenedbefore.
I'm being facetious, it happensall the time.
Okay, so those are yourheadlines for today.
Not a huge news day, but acouple really important things.
Jobs are trending down, more AInews, as always.

(05:21):
That's a daily occurrence, andgood news on the shutdown coming
to an end.
So great to see that.
But before we close, since wetalked about federal as our last
headline, here's your fun factfor today on that note.
The first woman to be appointedto a U.S.
cabinet position was FrancesPerkins, who served as the
Secretary of Labor from 1933 to1945, or groundbreaker.

(05:45):
That doesn't sound like thatlong ago for a woman to be in a
cabinet position, but I guessthat just shows where we were in
the not too distant past.
So good to see that has evolveda lot.
So there we are for today.
Thanks so much for listening.
Please like and subscribe,share with anyone who you think
might be interested.
And I look forward to talkingto you tomorrow.