American companies plan to maintain lean operations in 2026 while increasingly relying on technology to handle more work tasks. Forecasters from the job site Indeed indicate that hiring growth in 2026 will be relatively limited; e-commerce platform Shopify and fintech firm Chime Financial have explicitly stated their intentions to keep their workforce sizes largely stable.

This month, the Yale School of Management hosted a CEO summit in Midtown Manhattan. A post-event survey revealed that 66% of business leaders said they plan to either reduce staff or maintain their current team size next year; only one-third of respondents indicated plans to hire.

"Going forward, we are going to see a lot of wait-and-see companies," said Chris Layden, CEO of the human resources services firm Kelly Services. "A number of potential uncertainties mean that companies will continue to increase capital investment rather than investment in people."

The低迷 hiring sentiment among businesses has persisted for months.

In November, the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 4.6%, hitting a four-year high. Although employment in sectors like healthcare and education increased in 2025, there is growing evidence that the white-collar labor market is stagnating.

In recent months, well-known companies such as Amazon, Verizon Communications, Target, and United Parcel Service have collectively cut white-collar positions, further fueling anxiety among professionals.

Behind the reluctance to expand hiring lies both concerns about the economic outlook and a consensus that artificial intelligence is poised to take on more work within large corporations. Additionally, some companies that over-hired after the pandemic are still in an adjustment phase of rightsizing their workforce.

"Job growth is almost at a standstill right now, and that is not a healthy labor market," said Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller at the Yale summit. "When I travel around the country and talk to CEOs, every one of them tells me, 'We are not hiring because we are trying to figure out what AI is going to do—what jobs can be replaced? What jobs are non-essential?'"

Waller noted that if companies determine they need more people to achieve their growth goals, this hiring pause might be temporary. For now, however, there is a widespread belief that additional labor is simply unnecessary.

As a potential candidate for the next Fed Chair, Waller stated gravely, "Everyone in the workplace is worried about losing their job right now, and I am not exaggerating."

In this environment, many employees are choosing to stay put in their current roles. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) CEO Arvind Krishna revealed that the tech giant's employee attrition rate is currently at a 30-year low. In the U.S. market, IBM's voluntary attrition rate has fallen to below 2%, significantly lower than the historical norm of around 7%.

At a recent industry conference, when asked about Shopify's hiring plans, the company's Chief Financial Officer Jeff Hoffmeister gave an answer that is becoming increasingly common: "I don't see any need to grow our employee base next year. We've been operating at this headcount for over two years now. Looking ahead to next year, I'm confident we can continue to tightly manage our employee numbers."

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said this month that as the new year approaches, the bank's employee count is expected to shrink further. In recent years, driven by management's cost-cutting and organizational restructuring efforts, Wells Fargo's total workforce has decreased from approximately 275,000 in 2019 to around 210,000 today.