In this issue:

Corporate America made diversity a headline.
Now it’s making it disappear.

In the first half of 2025, 300,000 Black women vanished from the labor force.
Unemployment? 7.5% — more than double the national average.

The same companies that once bragged about inclusion are now quietly gutting DEI budgets and pink-slipping the women who built them.

This isn’t a coincidence.
It’s a pattern.
And it’s starting to look like Black Women’s Recession.

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The HR Blotter

The New Job Hunt: Trust No One - Sixty percent of job seekers got burned this year by fake listings and phony recruiters posing as Amazon or Google. Some lost ten grand, others lost trust—and now one in four ignores real offers out of fear they’re scams. In a hiring world run by algorithms and AI, the only real skill left is spotting who’s human.

No Hire, More Fire - The U.S. labor market is cracking under quiet pressure. Amazon, UPS, Intel, and Microsoft are slashing tens of thousands of jobs, replacing payroll with algorithms while the Fed cuts rates in a fog of missing data and political gridlock. With immigration throttled and hiring frozen, America’s economy feels like it’s running on autopilot—no pilots, no parachutes, just pink slips and profit margins.

AI’s Boom, Workers’ Bust - AI is set to supercharge the economy while gutting job security. Bank of America projects trillions in new growth—but warns the gains will favor companies over workers. For employers and HR leaders, the message is clear: adapt your workforce strategy now, or get automated out of relevance.

When Free Speech Meets Payroll - Public employees are getting caught in the crossfire of free speech and politics. After conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, teachers, biologists, and even landscapers were fired for mocking him online—now they’re suing, claiming their First Amendment rights were trampled to appease political outrage. These cases aren’t just about bad tweets; they’re about whether a worker can still speak their mind when their paycheck comes from the state.

The Campus Pipeline to Cheap Labor - Indian graduates in the U.S. just caught a major break. New Trump-era rules slapped a $100,000 fee on H-1B outsourcing hires—but carved out an exemption for students already stateside. That loophole means foreign grads can slide from campus jobs to white-collar work without paying the price, while U.S. tech grads watch the entry-level ladder disappear under imported talent willing to work longer for less.

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The Jim Stroud Podcast

Not subscribed to The Jim Stroud Podcast? Then you’ve been flying blind. Here’s a taste of what they’ve been hearing—while you’ve been missing it.

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Laid Off and Locked Out: DEI’s Retreat Became Black Women’s Recession

You ever notice how the warning signs never show up wearing sirens? They creep in quietly. A number here. A trend line there. Then suddenly, the bottom drops out and you realize the alarms were blaring the whole time.

Right now, those alarms sound like 300 000 Black women disappearing from the labour force in just a single quarter, pushing their unemployment rate up while the headlines keep cheering job-growth.  Likewise, a deeper dive finds their unemployment rate climbing “from 5.7 % in March to 6.2 % in April, 6.3 % in May…”, even as most other groups held steady.

And it’s not a storm happening somewhere else—it’s right here.

Gabrielle Wyatt, founder of The Highland Project - an org focused on sustaining Black women leaders - said that Black women are “…the canaries in the coal mine.” When they’re forced out of work, that’s not a foot-note. It’s a premonition that what hits them first will hit everyone else next—hard.

What’s going on? It’s hit from multiple sides:

• Jobs slashed in the sectors where Black women have made headway—public service, education, healthcare, corporate DEI initiatives.

• The roll-back of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs, removed protections, retracted supports.

• Economic pressure that falls disproportionately—child care costs, student debt, automation, declines in workplace lobbying power.

Economist Jasmine Tucker put it this way: “For me, Black women’s unemployment going up — this is the backbone of our economy, of our labor force. We have cause to be concerned.”

Because when stability drains out of one of the most employed, most resilient, most tied-into their communities groups in the workforce—what’s left?

Here’s the twist the data doesn’t always capture: Black women don’t stay down. While corporate America slams doors, they’re kicking open windows. Entrepreneurship among Black Women is surging—booming. One report calls it “one of the brightest sparks in the American economy.”

Call it necessity. Call it ambition. Either way, its a refusal to wait for permission.

But resilience shouldn’t always have to be the job requirement. These founders are grinding without the capital, without the safety net, without the same investor handshakes their peers take for granted. They’re boot-strapping ambitions while others get blank checks.

That’s the real story of 2025:
A crisis built by systems.
A response built by Black women’s will.

What happens next will tell us everything about the direction of the U.S. economy. Either those rising entrepreneurs build a new foundation—or we learn the hard way that when the canaries fall silent, the mine is already collapsing around us.

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One more thing before I go…

🚀 Big news — something very cool is about to drop.

In the very near future, I’m launching a premium job search course — built from the exact strategies I’ve used to help hundreds of professionals land faster, higher-paying roles.

Before I go fully live, I’m opening up a handful of beta spots for folks who want early access. You’ll get to go through the course, share your honest feedback, and (hopefully) leave a glowing review when we launch 😉

If you’re interested, let me know. I’ll see what I can do to get you in before the doors officially open.

Let’s make your next career move the best one yet. 💼🔥

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