Hey there — Yesterday, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023. A unanimous 12-0 vote. Nobody in the labor market should be sleeping on what that means for their next move. While the Fed was busy repricing the economy, FedEx filed WARN notices effective September 29, Kroger confirmed September workforce reductions, and Salesforce quietly crossed 1,100 jobs cut this year — most of them swapped out for AI. This week was a lot.
Today: The rate hike that just hit hiring budgets, plus FedEx, Kroger, Salesforce, and who’s still building distributed teams.
In This Issue:
- 🔥 The Big Story: The Fed’s first rate hike since 2023 — and what it means for your job search
- ⚡ Quick Hits: 4 major market movements from this week
- 🏢 Companies Hiring: 5 remote-first companies actively building right now
- 🎯 Career Signal: The job category growing 283% while everything else slows
- ✅ Quick Win: One check that tells you how rate-sensitive your target employer is
🔥 The Big Story
The Fed Just Raised Rates. Every Company’s Hiring Budget Is Being Recalculated Right Now.
The headline. On September 16, 2026 — yesterday — the Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 to raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, setting a new target range of 3.75%–4%. This is the first rate increase since 2023. The Fed’s statement was terse and direct: inflation remains elevated, economic activity is expanding at a solid pace, job gains have kept pace with the workforce. They cited the dual mandate and didn’t blink. See the official FOMC statement →
The bigger picture. A rate hike matters for job seekers because companies fund headcount with capital, and capital just got more expensive overnight. The sectors that feel it first are the ones most reliant on cheap borrowing: real estate, consumer lending, growth-stage tech, and any company that loaded up on debt during the low-rate era to fund AI infrastructure builds. That last category is large. Economists tracking 2026 capital expenditures estimate AI infrastructure investment now represents roughly 2.5% of U.S. GDP — and it’s been the primary driver keeping inflation above the Fed’s 2% target. The same AI spending that’s restructuring the workforce is also preventing the rate environment from normalizing. That loop doesn’t resolve quickly.
Why this matters: A company that planned its Q4 headcount assuming stable or declining rates just had that math disrupted. Rate-sensitive industries — finance, real estate, consumer goods, lending — will tighten faster. Growth-stage companies burning capital will reforecast before they post roles. And companies with strong balance sheets and low debt will pull away from the field. Before you apply anywhere this fall, understand whether the company you’re targeting is rate-sensitive. That due diligence isn’t optional anymore.
📊 Stat of the Week
1 in 10 → Job postings now explicitly require AI skills — a figure that has tripled since 2023. Among tech roles specifically, the share has hit 50%, with AI skill requirements jumping 98% year-over-year. (Gloat AI Skills Demand in the U.S. Job Market, 2026)
⚡ Quick Hits
FedEx Just Filed WARN Notices. September 29 Is the Effective Date.
The cuts are official. FedEx filed WARN Act notices covering workers with a separation date of September 29, 2026 — the latest in a string of workforce reductions the delivery giant has executed across its operating divisions. The move reflects sustained pressure on logistics volumes as e-commerce growth moderates and operational costs climb. FedEx has executed 81 WARN notices covering nearly 10,000 workers since 2001, with the cadence accelerating in 2025 and 2026. These aren’t restructuring announcements — they’re compliance filings. The roles are going. See federal WARN filings →
When a company’s WARN notices are dated in September but filed quarterly, it’s not a surprise. It’s the last leg of a decision made months ago.
Salesforce Has Cut 1,160 Jobs in 2026. The Reason Isn’t Headcount Targets.
Salesforce has eliminated roughly 1,160 roles so far in 2026 — concentrated in marketing, product management, and data analytics. The driver isn’t a revenue shortfall. It’s Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI platform, which the company says has taken over customer support functions that previously required human teams. When a company’s own product replaces its own employees, the announcement gets quieter. Investors like it. The people it affects don’t. See Salesforce investor relations →
The most expensive employees to replace are the ones who understand how the AI tools work. Become one of those.
Kroger Is Trimming Its Workforce This Month. Grocery Isn’t Immune.
Kroger confirmed September workforce reductions in recent state-level WARN filings, adding the grocery sector to the growing list of non-tech industries processing cuts in 2026. Kroger has executed 52 WARN notices covering over 3,100 workers across markets since 2000. This round reflects a combination of self-checkout automation, distribution center consolidation, and reduced consumer traffic in certain regions. Grocery is not a high-margin business, and every dollar saved on labor tends to be a dollar that stays. See federal WARN database →
When cuts hit grocery chains, it’s a signal that economic pressure has spread well beyond tech. That matters for how you read the broader market.
The Fortune 100 RTO Baseline Just Changed. 54% Are Fully In-Office Now.
New tracking data shows that 54% of Fortune 100 employees are now subject to a full-time return-to-office mandate — up from just 5% in 2023. The average required in-office days per week has risen from 2.6 to 3.9. This isn’t the announcement phase anymore; it’s the enforcement phase. Companies are documenting attendance, tying it to performance reviews, and — in some cases — offering voluntary severance to employees who won’t comply. The effective floor for “hybrid” has moved. See the 2026 RTO company tracker →
“Remote-optional” is no longer a neutral designation. Ask specifically how many days in-office are actually required and whether it’s being measured.
🏢 Companies Hiring
Distributed by design, not by exception. These five companies hire remote as the default — not the workaround.
Deel — 284 open roles across sales, engineering, operations, payroll, and product → Deel builds the global people platform that makes cross-border hiring, payroll, and compliance possible for 40,000+ companies in 160+ countries. The company operates as a fully distributed team itself and hires in 80+ countries — no headquarters, no exceptions. Roles currently span software engineering, finance, sales, risk, and HR operations. Explore open roles →
Automattic — 1,420 team members in 83 countries, always hiring remotely → Automattic builds WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and dozens of other products that power a large share of the web. The company has operated as a fully distributed team since its founding, with no office requirements and competitive pay regardless of location ($90,000–$200,000+). Annual team meetups are the exception; async work is the rule. See open roles →
Zapier — Remote since 2011, hiring in engineering, data, marketing, and customer ops → Zapier has been a remote-first company since before remote was a trend — and has never had an office. The company connects 7,000+ apps and is now the most connected AI orchestration platform on the market. Current openings span backend engineering, GTM analytics, marketing, sales, and customer success. Zapier also runs a “Next Play Program” to help current employees grow into bigger roles internally. Browse open roles →
Canonical — 349 open roles, fully remote since 2004 → Canonical creates Ubuntu and the open source technology that powers everything from cloud infrastructure to AI development environments. The company has operated as a fully distributed international team since 2004, with engineers, product managers, sales, and operations distributed across 40+ countries. If you want to work on the software that runs the world’s AI pipelines, start here. Explore careers →
Atlassian — Team Anywhere model, hiring in engineering, product, and sales globally → Atlassian builds Jira, Confluence, and the collaboration tools used by NASA, Spotify, and millions of teams globally. The company’s “Team Anywhere” distributed work model has been in place since 2020 and is — per leadership — a commitment for the next 100 years. Current roles span software engineering, product, AI/ML, and global sales. See open roles →
Know someone between jobs? Forward this section — it might be exactly what they need.
🎯 Career Signal
AI Trainer Is Now a Real Job. And It Grew 283% in One Year.
The Deel 2026 Global Hiring Report — which analyzed over 1 million worker contracts across 37,000+ companies in 150 countries — found that cross-border AI trainer roles grew 283% in 2025. There are now 70,000+ AI trainers globally, working for 600+ organizations, from basic annotation roles to subject-matter experts in medicine, economics, and legal analysis. Hourly compensation ranges from $15 to $75, with U.S.-based trainers concentrated in the higher bands. The key pattern: the fastest-growing AI trainer roles aren’t for pure technical experts — they’re for subject-matter specialists in established fields who can evaluate and correct AI outputs. If you have deep domain knowledge in law, healthcare, finance, or education, there is a growing market for that expertise.
🧠 Skill-Building Reads
Three resources worth adding to your queue before you start your next job search sprint.
Deel 2026 Global Hiring Report → The most data-rich snapshot of where global remote work is going. Covers the rise of AI trainers, cross-border compensation trends, which regions are seeing the fastest salary growth, and how workers in high-inflation markets are protecting their pay. Particularly useful if you’re considering international roles or contractor arrangements. Read the report →
BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025–26 Edition) → The definitive government source on career prospects, median salaries, and hiring outlook for 800+ occupations — updated for 2025–26. Before you pivot to a new field, this is the benchmark. It won’t tell you about next week’s trends, but it will tell you whether the sector you’re moving into is projected to grow, shrink, or stay flat through 2033. Free, official, and underused. Explore the handbook →
Google AI Essentials Certificate → Google’s official foundational AI course for non-technical professionals. Covers how generative AI works, practical prompting skills, and how to use AI tools to accelerate tasks across any role. Self-paced, and designed for people who work with AI but aren’t building it. If the “AI skills required” stat in this week’s issue is starting to feel urgent, this is the starting point. Start learning →
✅ Quick Win
Before applying anywhere this fall, look up the company’s debt-to-equity ratio.
It takes five minutes on their investor relations page or a quick search of their most recent 10-K filing on SEC EDGAR. Companies carrying heavy debt loads are most exposed to the Fed’s rate hike — higher rates mean higher interest payments, which puts pressure on operating budgets, including headcount. A company with low debt and strong cash flow is far more likely to execute on the role they’ve posted than one that’s already stretched. This single check can save you weeks of time on an application process for a role that gets frozen or pulled before you ever hear back.
What we’re watching: Whether the September Jobs Report (due October 2) shows any softening from the Fed hike’s signaling effect on hiring budgets; whether Salesforce’s next earnings call confirms Agentforce-driven headcount reduction as a permanent model; and whether the October 27-28 FOMC meeting results in a second consecutive rate increase.
🎯 Bottom Line
The Fed moved yesterday. After years of cuts, pauses, and rate-hold cycles, the FOMC voted unanimously to raise rates for the first time since 2023 — and signaled this may not be the last move of the year. For job seekers, the immediate implication is that company hiring budgets built on cheaper capital are now being recalculated. That’s not a reason to stop searching. It’s a reason to search smarter — prioritizing companies with strong balance sheets, low debt, and genuine business momentum over the ones riding AI hype with borrowed money.
FedEx and Kroger both filed cuts this week. Salesforce crossed 1,100 roles eliminated this year, most of them replaced by AI tools the company built itself. And yet Deel, Automattic, Zapier, Canonical, and Atlassian are all hiring right now — companies that built distributed-first operations before it was popular, and are still expanding because their model doesn’t depend on cheap office space or cheap debt. The opportunity isn’t disappearing. It’s concentrating. RemoteHunter.com has verified remote openings from companies that are genuinely building right now — plus AI tools for resumes and cover letters built for this exact market.
Until next week — keep building.
— The RH Team 🤙
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