Hey —
Something clicked into place this week. Groupon announced it’s cutting nearly a quarter of its workforce — and simultaneously raised its profit guidance. Cisco cut 4,000 workers the same day it posted record revenue. Intuit laid off 3,000 people from a company that’s growing. There’s a pattern here that job seekers need to name clearly: profitable companies are cutting staff not because they’re struggling, but because they’re reallocating budgets to AI infrastructure. That changes how you think about job security at a healthy company.
Today: Groupon’s AI restructuring, the $700B capex decision reshaping every employer’s headcount math, and five remote-first companies still actively building.
In This Issue:
- 🔥 The Big Story: Groupon’s “Project Foundry” cuts 400 jobs — and raises profit guidance
- ⚡ Quick Hits: 4 major market movements this week
- 🏢 Companies Hiring: 5 remote-first companies actively building
- 🎯 Career Signal: What the NY Fed just found about AI exposure and your job
- ✅ Quick Win: The one LinkedIn fix that changes who finds you
🔥 The Big Story
Groupon Cut 400 Jobs, Renamed It “Project Foundry,” and Then Raised Earnings Guidance
The headline. On May 21, 2026, Groupon’s board approved a restructuring plan to eliminate up to 400 positions globally — approximately 24% of its roughly 1,734-person workforce — as part of a company-wide initiative called Project Foundry. The plan, disclosed via SEC 8-K filing on May 26, is framed as a push to rebuild Groupon as an “AI-native company” by embedding AI agents into every function across the business: HR, customer service, software engineering, and operations. Along with the job cuts, COO Jiri Ponrt resigned, effective July 10, with no severance. The company expects $7–$13 million in restructuring charges, estimates $20–$25 million in annualized cost savings, and plans to reinvest up to 50% of those savings into marketing, AI infrastructure, and what it calls “talent density.”
The bigger picture. Here’s what’s striking: in the same filing, Groupon raised its full-year Adjusted EBITDA guidance from $70–$75 million to $75–$80 million. The company isn’t cutting because it’s failing. It’s cutting to fund a different version of itself. That’s the 2026 template. Project Foundry is explicitly described as just the “initial phase” — the board will evaluate additional material cost-reduction and automation actions that could run through end of 2027. Groupon isn’t done restructuring; it’s building a restructuring roadmap. For anyone working in a company of similar size that has mentioned AI transformation in a recent all-hands or earnings call, that distinction matters.
Why this matters: Groupon isn’t a company you usually watch for labor market signals. It’s a mid-market consumer platform that peaked in 2011 and has spent the last decade fighting for relevance. The fact that even Groupon is now executing a named, board-approved AI restructuring program tells you something important: this playbook isn’t limited to tech giants anymore. If your company’s leadership has talked about “AI-native” strategy in the last six months, watch for how they define what that means for headcount.
Source: Groupon SEC 8-K Filing, May 26, 2026
Stat of the Week
$650–$700 billion → The combined AI capital expenditure commitments for 2026 from Amazon (~$200B), Alphabet ($180–$190B), Meta ($125–$145B), and Microsoft — roughly double what these four companies spent on AI infrastructure in 2025. The same companies have collectively shed tens of thousands of workers this year. (Amazon IR, Alphabet IR, Meta IR, Microsoft IR — Q1 2026 earnings disclosures)
⚡ Quick Hits
Intuit Is Cutting 3,000 Workers — Including Closing Two Major Offices
Intuit — the company behind TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Credit Karma — announced a plan to cut 17% of its global workforce, approximately 3,000 employees, along with the closure of offices in Reno, Nevada and Woodland Hills, California. CEO Sasan Goodarzi framed the move as simplifying the company’s organizational structure so it can move faster on AI. The company expects to incur $300–$340 million in restructuring charges, primarily cash-based severance, with all actions expected to complete by October 2026. Affected employees in the US receive 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks per year of service. Intuit had approximately 18,200 employees worldwide as of July 2025. The most notable thing about this cut: it comes right after the company posted record quarterly results. When a profitable company eliminates 17% of its staff and closes offices in the same announcement, it’s not a cost problem — it’s an architecture decision.
Get the details →: Intuit SEC 8-K Filing, May 20, 2026
Cisco Cut 4,000 Jobs the Same Day It Reported Record $15.8B Revenue
Cisco announced it will cut nearly 4,000 workers — less than 5% of its ~80,000-person workforce — in the same earnings release where it posted $15.8 billion in quarterly revenue, up 12% year over year. CEO Chuck Robbins said the cuts are about redirecting investment toward silicon, optics, security, and AI — not addressing financial underperformance. The company raised its full-year AI infrastructure order target from $5 billion to $9 billion, having already secured $5.3 billion in AI orders year to date. Restructuring charges will reach approximately $1 billion. Affected employees receive severance plus one year of free Cisco training. The new math in 2026: strong revenue + AI pivot = headcount reduction. Job security at healthy companies now requires understanding what specific work you do that sits above automation.
See the breakdown →: Cisco Newsroom
Saks Global Files Bankruptcy, Then Cuts 640 Corporate Jobs
Saks Global — the company that combined Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2026 following its $2.7 billion acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group, and has since eliminated approximately 640 corporate jobs, or 16% of its corporate workforce. The cuts spare store and distribution center employees, targeting back-office and headquarters teams across finance, legal, and operations. CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck told staff the reductions reflect a “smaller operational footprint.” This story is notably different from the AI-pivot cuts dominating the news cycle: Saks isn’t cutting to fund technology investment. It’s cutting because it made a massive acquisition, went bankrupt, and is now rebuilding with less. The non-AI version of the 2026 layoff: consumer brands that overextended on deals during the low-rate era are now paying the bill.
Read the full story →: Saks Global
PNC Financial Just Ended Hybrid Work for ~55,000 Employees
On May 4, 2026, PNC Financial’s five-day, in-office mandate took effect for its roughly 55,000 US employees — one of the largest financial services companies to enforce full-time office attendance since the wave of 2026 RTO mandates began. CEO Bill Demchak announced the policy in January, framing it as a cultural necessity: “PNC has always been an in-office company.” The bank offered a shuttle service, backup childcare, and employee-rate parking to ease the transition. PNC joins Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, AT&T, and Dell in requiring five days on-site — a list covering more than 54% of Fortune 100 employees. If you’re in financial services and have been comfortable with hybrid, the window is narrowing. The companies still offering genuine flexibility are increasingly distinguishing themselves in job postings.
Dive deeper →: PNC Financial Investor Relations
🏢 Companies Hiring
While layoff headlines are running the news cycle, distributed teams are still being built. Here are five remote-first companies actively hiring right now.
Automattic — 100% Distributed Since Day One, 1,730+ Teammates in 92 Countries → Automattic — the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and Tumblr — has operated as a fully distributed organization since its founding. Everyone works from where they choose. Pay is consistent across geographies. Open roles span engineering, product, support, and finance. Their hiring process includes a paid trial project before any offer is extended. View open roles
Atlassian — “Team Anywhere” Policy, Hiring Globally Across Product, Engineering, and Sales → Atlassian formalized its distributed work model under the name “Team Anywhere,” allowing employees to work from anywhere within their legal entity’s reach. Since implementing the policy, Atlassian’s team has tripled in size and offer acceptance rates have increased by 20%. Open roles span engineering, product management, design, security, and go-to-market. Every Atlassian interview is conducted 100% virtually. View open roles
Zapier — 100% Remote Since Founding, 800+ Employees Across 40+ Countries → Zapier has never had a physical office. The company builds workflow automation tools used globally and has operated fully remote from day one. Open roles span engineering, customer support, marketing, operations, and product. Zapier is explicit that remote isn’t a perk — it’s the operating model. View open roles
Salesforce — “Success from Anywhere” Flex Model, Hundreds of Active Remote Roles → Salesforce operates a flexible work model that gives employees genuine choice between remote, hybrid, and in-office. Active openings span sales, engineering, customer success, product, and marketing across global markets. Salesforce consistently appears on Best Places to Work lists specifically for work flexibility. View open roles
MongoDB — Flexible Working Models, 121+ Active Openings Across Engineering, Sales, and Consulting → MongoDB provides multiple working model options — including fully remote — depending on the role. The company builds the world’s leading document-oriented database platform, with strong demand across cloud, AI, and enterprise sectors. Open roles include engineering, solutions consulting, sales, and customer success. View open roles
Know someone between jobs? Forward this section — it might be exactly what they need.
🎯 Career Signal
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published research this month that cuts through a lot of the noise around AI and jobs. Their finding: 40% of US workers are in occupations with zero measurable AI exposure — meaning AI tools aren’t being used to perform any of their core tasks yet. Less than 10% of workers are in occupations with genuinely high AI exposure. The NY Fed’s conclusion: “AI will change jobs more than it eliminates them, at least in the near term.” What changes first isn’t whether your job exists — it’s whether you’re the person at your company who knows how to work with AI versus the person who doesn’t. The workers most at risk aren’t those being replaced — they’re those who aren’t building the adjacent skills that let them work alongside the technology already entering their teams.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Liberty Street Economics, May 14, 2026
🧠 Skill-Building Reads
This week’s market makes one thing clear: the skills gap is widening fast. Here’s what’s worth your time.
Google Cloud AI Skills Playbook — Free, Practical, Built for Non-Technical Professionals → Google Cloud published an official skills playbook designed to help professionals understand AI’s role in their specific function — not just in engineering. It covers how to identify AI-applicable workflows, assess your team’s readiness, and build an upskilling plan without a technical background. If you’re in operations, HR, sales, or finance, this is more useful than most AI courses.
Microsoft + LinkedIn Learning: Generative AI Productivity Skills (Free Learning Path) → LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft co-built a free learning path covering Copilot, prompt engineering, and AI-driven automation for real workplace tasks — designed for professionals who work in Microsoft 365 environments. Modules cover using AI for writing, data analysis, presentations, and project management. One of the highest-quality free AI skills paths for office professionals.
IMF: New Skills and AI Are Reshaping the Future of Work → The IMF published a detailed analysis showing which skills command wage premiums in 2026 and which occupations are gaining value as AI adoption accelerates. Key finding: job postings requiring 4 or more new skills pay up to 8.5% more in the US. If you’re deciding where to invest your learning time, the IMF’s occupational data gives you a clearer signal than most career advice.
✅ Quick Win
Change your LinkedIn headline from your job title to your highest-value skill or outcome.
Most people’s LinkedIn headlines say something like “Senior Marketing Manager at [Company].” That tells a recruiter your title. It doesn’t tell them what you’re actually good at. Switch to something like “B2B Demand Gen | Pipeline Growth | HubSpot + AI Tools” and you show up in more searches, attract better-fit inreach, and immediately signal what you bring to a role — not just what you’ve been called. Takes about four minutes. Does more than most resume rewrites.
What we’re watching: Whether Groupon’s “Project Foundry” template — a named, board-approved AI transformation roadmap with phased headcount reductions — gets adopted as a public-facing framework by other mid-market companies; how PNC’s 5-day RTO affects retention through Q2 and whether competitors use it as a recruiting advantage; and whether Saks Global successfully exits bankruptcy and resumes hiring through the back half of 2026.
🎯 Bottom Line
This week made the 2026 job market calculus explicit: companies that are growing, profitable, and posting record revenue are also cutting significant portions of their workforce. Not to survive — to redirect capital toward AI infrastructure and reduce the headcount required to operate at scale. That’s a different kind of instability than what job seekers usually prepare for. The traditional signals — company financial health, revenue growth, strong earnings — no longer mean your seat is safe. The new question is whether the specific work you do is what your company plans to keep doing, or whether it’s among the functions being handed to an AI agent.
The workers navigating this well are asking something harder than “is my company doing okay?” They’re asking “why would my company still need a human to do what I do in 18 months?” If you can answer that clearly, you’re ahead of most. If you can’t yet — this week is a good time to start building the answer. RemoteHunter.com has verified remote jobs and AI-powered resume and cover letter tools to help you build an application that speaks directly to where the market is going.
Until next week — keep building.
— The RH Team 🤙
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