A Rundown of Recruiting-News, Odds and Sods, and Some Recommended Reading

Tech

• EEOC Asked to Clarify Authority to Investigate Bias in AI Hiring Technologies - U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) and 9 other Democrats have sent a letter requesting clarification from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Janet Dhillon regarding the EEOC’s authority to investigate bias in Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven hiring technologies.: “While hiring technologies can sometimes reduce the role of individual hiring managers’ biases, they can also reproduce and deepen systemic patterns of discrimination reflected in today’s workforce data…” Bennet and the other Senators wrote in the letter to EEOC Chair Dhillon. “Combatting systemic discrimination takes deliberate and proactive work from vendors, employers, and the Commission.”
• Hibob Raises $70M Series B - The employee engagement and communication platform promises to "provide access to data insights, empower managers to work more closely with their people, and scale culture across sites (and now, homes)."
• Turing Raises $32M Series B - The company raised this capital fast, and credits it to the rapid shift to remote work. Turing is a platform to help companies source and bring on one specific category of remote employees — engineers.
• myinterview Raises $5M Seed Round - Australian-based video resume platform says "there’s definitely been an impact in people who are still hiring needing to adopt technology such as myInterview in order to do that more effectively and efficiently with social distancing and the number of applicants coming through because of the market, and the more general adoption of video across the space."

Work Related News:

The Good

• CVS is Recruiting its Customers - Sourcing-level: Eleven. CVS Health sent an email to its customer base Dec. 6, saying it is "urgently hiring" thousands of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and nurses to help administer COVID-19 vaccines once an FDA emergency use authorization is issued. "We're committed to administering millions of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021," the email read. "To do that, we need thousands of pharmacists, nurses and pharmacy technicians and more from across the United States."
• Just Eat Turns Away From Gig Economy by Recruiting 1,000 Riders - Andrew Kenny, Just Eat’s UK managing director, said in parts of Europe the “winds of change” were to move away from a freelance-led model. This has implications for a lot of other organizations (hi, Uber).
• 86 New Companies That Hire Military Spouses Inducted Into DOD Hiring Program - Eighty-six new companies were inducted into the Military Spouse Employment Partnership today — a Defense Department program that joins with the civilian sector to employ military spouses worldwide. This brings the total number of MSEP employers to 500.

The Bad

• US Oct. Job Openings Up to 6.7 Million but Hiring Slows - U.S. employers advertised slightly more job openings in October, but hiring slipped as a resurgence of COVID-19 threatens the economic recovery. And the number of Americans fired or laid off rose for the first time since June. Job postings rose to 6.65 million in October from 6.49 million in September, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. But employers hired 5.81 million workers, which is less than the 5.89 million hires in September.
• 'Sad milestone': Southwest Airlines Warns 6,800 Workers of First Layoffs in its History - The airline has been in negotiations about pay cuts and other cost savings with its unions since October to offset what it has said are more than $1 billion in "overstaffing costs" due to the depressed travel demand from the pandemic.
• After Three months of Rebound, the US IT Job Market Reversed Course in November, Shedding 8,300 Jobs - For the year, the net loss of US IT jobs now stands at 81,100, still down from a peak high of 102,900 job losses this year as of August.

... and the Ugly

• Women of Color in Face Higher Risks, Layoffs During Pandemic - Women, and particularly women of color, in Minnesota are not only more likely to work in essential jobs at greater risk for exposure to the coronavirus, but have also have been disproportionately affected by layoffs during the pandemic according to a new report from the University of Minnesota.

Recommended Reading

• Motherhood on the Line: Three asylum seekers navigate coronavirus and climate change at the U.S.-Mexico border [Longreads]
• A TikTok house divided: You’re 19 years old. You get famous overnight. You move to LA. Now what? [Vox]
• Huawei, 5G, and the Man Who Conquered Noise: How an obscure Turkish scientist’s obscure theoretical breakthrough helped the Chinese tech giant gain control of the future. US telecoms never had a chance. [Wired]