Workspan Daily News Bytes for April 3, 2026

Private-Sector Hiring Increased by 62,000; Annual Pay Up 4.5%

U.S. private-sector employers added 62,000 jobs in March, while pay was up 4.5% year-over-year, according to data released Wednesday, April 1, by payroll processing firm ADP.

“Overall hiring is steady, but job growth continues to favor certain industries, including healthcare,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. “In March, this solid performance was accompanied by a boost in pay gains for job-changers.”

Two sectors provided most of the gains: education and health services (+58,000), and construction (+30,000). Hiring in trade/transportation/utilities (-58,000) continued to decline, as did manufacturing (-11,000).

The smallest employers (those with 19 or fewer employees) drove job growth (+112,000) for a second month, while those with 50 to 249 employees saw the largest decline (-26,000).

Year-over-year pay growth for job-stayers remained at 4.5% for the third consecutive month. For job-changers, pay gains accelerated to 6.6%.

Financial services employers provided the largest median annual pay bump for job-stayers, at 5.2%. Increases were more subdued for information services and “other services” employers (3.8% and 4.2%, respectively).

Family Caregivers Account for $1 Trillion in Essential Care

About 59 million caregivers provide care for an adult family member, neighbor or friend, according to a new report from the AARP Public Policy Institute. Approximately 37 million of these caregivers (63%) provided care each month.

Based on the research, caregivers’ time adds up to 49.5 billion hours of care, representing $1.01 trillion in total economic value annually. That value exceeded the $932 billion total in federal, state and local Medicaid spending and $557 billion total in out-of-pocket health spending, according to AARP.

In addition, the number of tasks caregivers perform has increased over time:

57% of surveyed family caregivers of adults perform high-intensity caregiving, defined by the tasks they perform and the hours they devote to caregiving.
55% perform medical/nursing tasks that are typically handled by healthcare professionals.
Family caregivers spend, on average, 27 hours per week on caregiving.

“Many are doing all of this while working, while raising children and trying to stay afloat, both financially and emotionally,” AARP CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan said.

AI-Using Employees Are More Engaged, But Loyalty Is a Concern

Fewer employees feel engaged at work than they did a few years ago and article intelligence (AI) may be contributing to the decline, according to a new Employee Engagement Statistics Report by career website Resume Genius.

The report found U.S. employee engagement is down 5 percentage points from its 2020 peak, translating to roughly 8 million fewer engaged employees.

It suggested employees who use AI in their day-to-day work are far more engaged than their counterparts who don’t use AI (or are not permitted to) at work. For example:

Frequent AI users are nearly three times more likely to be fully engaged at work.
32% of workers say they would rather ask ChatGPT for advice than ask a coworker.
- 44% of Gen Z workers feel this way, the highest percentage among all generations.

However, higher engagement doesn’t necessarily translate to loyalty. Among surveyed daily AI users:

30% say they are actively looking or interviewing for a new job.
31% strongly agree they’re scared their job could be replaced by AI.
Only 21% say they feel connected at work, compared to 30% to 33% of workers who rarely or never use AI.

“Engagement isn’t just about whether employees like their jobs,” said Nathan Soto, a career expert at Resume Genius. “It also translates to whether they feel secure and supported in their jobs as the nature of work changes. AI may be increasing productivity, but if it also increases anxiety or weakens social connections, employers could see employee loyalty quietly decline, even as engagement rises in the short term.”

Women Show Stronger Engagement and Burnout at Work

Despite reporting higher levels of burnout, women are more likely than men to say they are “extremely motivated” to pursue career growth opportunities, according to recent data from Gallup. The analytics and advisory firm reported 20% of women say this, compared with 16% of men.

Women lead men by 6 percentage points in workplace engagement, 34% versus 28%. The current gap is slightly higher than the average over the previous four years, according to the Gallup analysis.

Among full-time employed workers with children, 33% of women versus 25% of men say they “always” or “very often” experience burnout. Among those without children, the 8-percentage-point gap remains, (31% among women and 23% among men).

From 2022 through 2025, an average of 29% of women in leadership roles reported experiencing burnout compared with an average of 19% of men in these roles. Among managers, there is a 7-percentage-point difference in average burnout rates between women (34%) and men (27%). These differences have remained relatively stable across the four-year period.

Figures and Facts of the Week

3 million: The number of messages, on average, U.S. workers send to ChatGPT per day asking about wages, compensation or earnings, according to a new report by the AI chatbot’s developer, OpenAI.
37: The percentage of U.S. and Canadian workers who leave their jobs due to poor culture or management, making it the leading cause of early departure, according to a report by staffing and recruiting agency Aerotek.
30: The percentage of American workers who describe their senior leaders as “exceptional,” according to research by leadership and communications consultancy The Grossman Group. Meanwhile, 16% of surveyed employees said their leaders are “outdated,” leaving them exhausted, overwhelmed and burned out.
22: The percentage of global workers who confidently said they believe their job is safe from elimination, according to new research by HR and payroll solutions provider ADP.
8: The percentage of U.S. employees who reported spending 10 or more work hours per week on financial matters, according to a recent employee financial wellness report by technology analyst firm Valoir.

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