January 5-11, 2026:
• Enhancing productivity: Dutch compliance tech startup Awesome announces €1.2M round;
• Looking for something they can count on: In sharp reversal, workers value stability over perks;
• Downsizing or upskilling: Major companies entering 2026 with mass layoffs already underway;
• Predicting yet another demise: Most AI recruiting platforms won’t survive the next 18 months;
• Telling fake from real is now almost impossible: AI is intensifying a ‘collapse’ of trust online.
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Dutch compliance startup Awesome announced a €1.2 million preseed funding round. The company produces an AI-powered platform to enable collaboration and automate compliance tasks. The new funds will be devoted to continued product development, new hiring and geographic expansion.
In a “historic reversal,” employees now prioritize organizational stability — such as confidence in senior leaders and a company’s ability to adapt to change — over belonging and feeling valued, Perceptyx revealed in research published at the end of last year. That shift may be driven by economic uncertainty, Perceptyx said. In turn, employees want to work at companies with credibility, stability and effective leadership.
A surge of layoffs from major U.S. corporations is accelerating into 2026, following 1.17 million job cuts announced through November 2025—the highest total since 2020. Workers across manufacturing, tech, and services face mounting pressure as companies restructure amid automation and fiscal resets.
Every vendor promised faster hiring, less recruiter work, and better candidates. For a while, it worked. But the market shifted. The problem these tools were built to solve is disappearing. Not because the tools are bad. Because the foundation they were built on is melting. Large language models quietly destroyed the resume as a reliable signal.
For years, people could largely trust, at least instinctively, that seeing was believing. Now, what’s fake often looks real and what’s real often looks fake. Within the first week of 2026, that has already become a conundrum many media experts say will be hard to move past, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence.
TAtech: The Network for Talent Technology Solutions is a comprehensive resource hub for talent technology companies worldwide. Its mission is to help accelerate their growth and profitability through year-round support that helps them establish market and technology partnerships, promote their product and company brands, and reinforce their business leadership.
