With 1.7 million layoffs and discharges in August 2025 alone and more than 1 million job-cut announcements through October, 2025 ranks as a year for profound workforce instability. From DEI program roll backs to entry-level roles collapsing under AI restructuring, the impacts fell hardest on older workers, women (especially Black women) and employees at the start of their careers. When both the most and least skilled workers face structural barriers, the issue of workplace age bias isn’t going away. As we move into 2026, it will take a new leadership mindset to address these discrepancies–one grounded in transparency, fairness and accountability.
How 2025 Decisions Created Workforce Risks for 2026
In 2022, a Gallup survey showed that only 28% of employees strongly agreed that their organization is fair to everyone. How can teams be productive or effective when 72% of employees feel unfair treatment is commonplace? Add to that the workplace disruption from this year and leaders are under pressure from all sides.
Workplace culture is proactively shaped–and that includes a culture of trust, so leaders have their work cut out for them in the year to come. The pressures companies created (or allowed to grow) throughout 2025 will shape their workforce risks in the coming year.
The rollback of DEI removed internal safeguards.
DEI functions, whatever their scale, provided mechanisms for tracking disparities and improving access. Without them, inequities go unmeasured and unaddressed. In consumer-facing industries, companies that dismantled DEI efforts saw immediate backlash and measurable declines in customer trust.
AI restructuring hollowed out the early-career pipeline.
Research shows that AI automates junior-level, repetitive tasks first–the functions that historically helped new graduates learn, gain context and build skills. Removing those roles without creating new pathways can lead to future talent shortages–if you collapse the entry point of the talent pipeline, the middle and top eventually empty out. Moreover, mid-career talent is already in short supply across finance, tech, government, and healthcare.
Layoffs disproportionately harmed specific groups.
When DEI oversight disappeared, disparities widened because there were no mechanisms left to identify and address them–including age. Older workers and Black women were among the most affected in 2025. Early-career workers also faced reduced access as automation and layoffs narrowed the bottom of the ladder. When both older and younger workers face barriers, age becomes a diagnostic signal: the workforce system is not only inequitable, it’s unstable.
Mandatory arbitration obscured the full picture.
With more than half of private-sector workers unable to take disputes to court due to forced arbitration contracts, systemic harm stays hidden. Without visibility, companies repeat the same patterns of inequity. Given the scale of 2025’s layoffs, many impacted workers had already signed away their right to bring claims to court, limiting their ability to challenge discriminatory layoffs or unfair rehiring practices.
What Leaders Must Do in 2026 to Reduce Workforce Instability
For leaders willing to fix a broken system, the workforce needs more than messaging. It requires leaders willing to act.
1. Rebuild the guardrails even if DEI is politically unpopular.
Perform equity audits, demographic tracking, transparent promotion criteria and protected feedback channels are basic operational tools that show leaders where their systems are breaking down.
2. Reconstruct early-career pathways and establish re-entry pathways for mid- and late-career workers.
Create apprenticeships, rotational programs and skills-first hiring routes that replace the junior roles AI has threatened. At the same time, develop re-skilling and re-entry programs for experienced workers looking to restart their careers in different fields or industries.
3. Increase transparency even where arbitration hides patterns.
Voluntary report on hiring, promotions and exits to uncover disparities that formal DEI processes once surfaced. If age wasn’t part of former DEI tracking, add it now.
4. Replace mandatory arbitration with transparent, fair dispute options.
Arbitration keeps systemic harm hidden. Eliminating it isn’t a political gesture–it’s a basic requirement for transparency, ethical leadership and rebuilding trust.
Why 2026 Demands a New Kind of Workforce Leadership
The pressures employers face in 2026 will test traditional assumptions about leadership. Not only will disparities related to race and gender intensify without intervention, but age bias will become impossible to ignore. Addressing the instability ahead requires leaders to recognize that all people deserve equitable employment opportunities and demonstrate a willingness to take action to ensure it.
Research from Gallup, MIT Sloan and Edelman shows that organizations with higher trust, transparent decision-making and equitable systems outperform in retention, productivity and discretionary effort. These aren’t moral preferences; they’re operational requirements. In 2026, leaders who choose visibility over opacity and accountability over avoidance will be better equipped to stabilize teams and rebuild talent pipelines.