Workspan Daily News Bytes for March 13, 2026

How New Immigration Policies, DEI and AI Are Impacting Workplaces

From new immigration policies and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program crackdowns to booming artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and state legislative changes, organizations are navigating myriad impacts to their workplaces and workers.

To assess where employers stand in this dynamic environment, Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute — the employment law firm’s government relations and public policy arm — surveyed more than 300 in-house lawyers, HR professionals and C-suite executives from a range of company sizes and industries across the U.S.

Key findings from the report included:

DEI and immigration policy changes during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second presidential administration brought far-reaching impacts. Many employers said DEI (71%) and immigration (65%) policy changes over the past year impacted their businesses — more than twice the share who selected any other workplace policy or regulatory change. Those figures rose to 86% for DEI changes and 79% for immigration among large employers (those with more than 10,000 employees).
Sixty-three percent of employers — and 75% of large employers — experienced workforce staffing challenges as a result of the administration’s immigration policies. This surpasses the unease expressed about workforce staffing in Littler’s 2025 Employer Survey, when 58% expressed concern such hurdles could arise due to the administration’s immigration policies.
Thirty-five percent of respondents — and 42% of large employers — said their organizations made workforce reductions as a result of regulatory and economic uncertainty over the past year. Another 30% said their organizations have paused or reduced hiring amid regulatory and economic uncertainty.
Eighty-nine percent of respondents have been impacted by legislative changes and new workplace regulations at the state and local levels over the past year, primarily in the areas of paid leave, pay equity and pay transparency, and data privacy. With the federal government pulling back on workplace regulation, many state and local legislatures have looked to fill the gap, leading to a growing patchwork of laws for employers to navigate.

Proposed Bill Would Raise NYC’s Minimum Wage to $30 an Hour

A proposed bill by New York City council member Sandra Nurse aims to raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 an hour. The increase would come in steps, reaching the $30 mark by 2030, up from the current $17 hourly rate.

According to news reports, the legislation calls for employers with more than 500 employees to pay workers $20 an hour by 2027 and $30 an hour by 2030. Companies that employ fewer than 500 workers would be required to pay workers $21.50 by 2028 and hit $30 an hour by 2032. Future increases would be linked to cost-of-living increases.

The last major increase in the minimum wage was in the 2010s, when the city’s minimum wage rose to $15 for companies employing 11 or more employees, according to the state’s department of labor. It rose to $17 earlier this year.

Nurse, a Democrat, noted that New York City’s minimum wage is behind such cities as Flagstaff, Ariz. ($18.35 hourly minimum), Denver ($19.29) and Seattle ($21.30). But no U.S. city currently has a $30 minimum, though some hospitality workers in Los Angeles are set to receive a $30 rate by 2028, and certain tourism workers in San Diego will get a $25 minimum wage by 2030, according to the National Employment Law Project.

Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25.

KPMG Will Pay Its Employees for Innovative AI Ideas

Global professional services firm KPMG is launching an awards program to incentivize its consultants to innovate with artificial intelligence (AI), according to a recent Business Insider report.

Dubbed the “AI Spark Innovation” awards, the firm plans to identify and reward employees who can demonstrate “an incredible thing that they’ve done with AI,” with a view to scaling those ideas across the organization, Rob Fisher, KPMG U.S.’s vice chair of advisory, told the publication.

He noted the firm will award “outsized monetary awards” for the most “exciting ideas” that create value for clients or enable KPMG’s back office to operate more efficiently.

Fisher declined to specify the exact dollar amounts, but he said that, in most cases, the cash prizes would be “materially larger than an end-of-year variable compensation award.”

A pilot ran in the first quarter of 2026, with the first portion of official rewards to be awarded next quarter. Nominations will come from various group leaders and will be reviewed quarterly by a steering committee.

49% of Workers Lack Time Off to Care for Emotional Needs

In its latest Emotional Leave Report, career website Zety surveyed 1,020 U.S. workers and found that 49% of them have needed time off for an emotionally difficult situation, such as a family emergency or mental health crisis, but didn’t have the appropriate paid time off (PTO) available.

The lack of appropriate leave reflects a broader gap between workplace policies and real-life challenges, and many want employers to expand their approach to time off, Zety career expert Jasmine Escalera wrote in her analysis. She noted:

57% of surveyed workers don’t believe current PTO policies account for major emotional life events.
50% strongly support emotional PTO being included in standard employment benefits.

Escalera said many workers want more structured support for emotionally significant life events rather than relying on general PTO categories:

54% believe emotional-specific PTO (e.g., family and pet bereavement leave, breakup leave) should be separate from mental health days.

Survey participants said the following life events should have dedicated PTO:

Mental health crisis (70%)
Miscarriage or pregnancy loss (65%)
Medical diagnosis for self (59%)
Unexpected childcare crisis (52%)
Medical diagnosis for a close family member or friend (47%)
Death of a pet (32%)
Divorce or romantic breakup (25%)

Figures and Facts of the Week

31,000: The number of federal employees who applied for retirement in February, according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Application cases with pensions that are yet-to-be finalized now exceed 65,000 — an 88% increase since the government last took inventory in October.
20,000: The amount of U.S. federal discrimination lawsuits filed in 2025, the first time that filings crossed that threshold since at least 2009, according to an Employment Litigation Report by data analytics firm LexisNexis. The report noted recent developments in case law that reinforced certain avenues of recovery for discrimination plaintiffs likely played a role in this increase.
45: The percentage of American full-time workers who consider themselves “workaholics,” according to a new report by employment website Monster. Nearly three quarters of workers reported working more than a standard 40-hour week.
41: The percentage of U.S. workers who are ready to embrace AI as another member of the team, according to a Digital Work Trends Report by Slingshot, an AI work management platform.
40: The percentage of global HR professionals who said performance management is their top priority in 2026, according to a State of People Strategy Report by HR management platform Lattice. Engagement followed at 39%.
11: The average year-over-year account balance percentage increase for 401(k) plans, according to Fidelity Investments’ Q4 2025 retirement analysis. The average account balance is $146,400, according to the report.

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