Welcome in, today is Thursday, October twenty-second, and we begin with a California rule change, reported by HR Dive, that would put postpartum depression and telework inside the state's accommodation duty. HR Dive reports California has proposed regulations clarifying accommodation protections for postpartum depression and for telework as an accommodation. Per that account, the proposal is drafted to incorporate recent changes to California law and to align the state with the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. It is a proposal, not a final rule, and that reporting carries no effective date, so the near-term work sits in leave and remote-work policy language rather than in a compliance deadline. Practitioner reaction leans celebratory rather than analytical, though a recurring thread treats the widened set of people who could certify an accommodation request, including nurses, doulas and mental-health clinicians, as the operationally larger change, more than the newly named conditions. A more skeptical strand argues identification was never the hard part, and reads follow-through and coordination as what will decide the effect. Now, to pay. Median weekly earnings for full-time workers reached one thousand two hundred thirty-two dollars in the third quarter, up one point five percent on the year, against a three point five percent rise in the Consumer Price Index over the same period. That is Bureau of Labor Statistics data posted Wednesday, drawn from the Current Population Survey and covering roughly one hundred twenty-two million full-time wage and salary workers. It follows our earlier report on prices outrunning real wages, and it gives compensation teams a quarterly baseline, not a monthly one, heading into twenty twenty-seven planning. The same release puts median weekly earnings for women at one thousand one hundred twenty-seven dollars, or eighty-three point four percent of the one thousand three hundred fifty-two dollar median for men. Some commentary pushes back on the quarterly framing, arguing earnings growth has roughly tracked prices over a two-decade horizon. Also today, the same agency's longer view. Projections through twenty thirty-five put six of the ten fastest-growing occupations in healthcare and social assistance, led by advanced practice registered nurses, where employment is projected to climb from three hundred thirty-six thousand to four hundred seventy-four thousand, close to forty-one percent. Per those projections, private healthcare and social assistance adds more than two point two million jobs and about thirty-seven percent of all new jobs over the decade, which sets the decade's competition for clinical and care talent. Data scientists are projected up about thirty-five percent, and two of the top ten sit in renewable power, on electricity demand tied to AI and data centers. The same report expects AI productivity gains to trim demand in office and administrative support work. A recurring pushback separates projected growth from shortage, and some practitioners point to short-credential and health-IT entry points as the nearer opening. Separately, to Canada. Ninety-seven point three percent of Stellantis's roughly nine thousand Unifor-represented workers voted to authorize job action, in a ballot held October seventeenth and eighteenth and announced by the union on the nineteenth, HRD Canada reports. Per that account, a walkout would halt Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Charger production in Windsor, Ontario, and neither side has yet requested a No Board report, the required step before legal job action, so the mandate reads as leverage rather than a strike date. National president Lana Payne said members gave an overwhelming mandate to support their bargaining committee. The same reporting has Stellantis telling Transport Topics it remains committed to good-faith bargaining, and Industry Minister Melanie Joly saying on October sixteenth, quote, we will bring back production to Brampton. Some in the trade read the dispute as a planned exit from Canadian assembly rather than a bargaining posture, which would leave product allocation as the nearer exposure. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Per Mondaq, a September eighteenth executive order pulls more federal agencies into H-1B scrutiny, and a proclamation extends the one hundred thousand dollar entry payment twelve more months. Newsweek reports Bureau of Labor Statistics figures with unemployment lower in five states month over month, higher in seven on the year, against a national rate of four point two percent. HRD Canada argues one pay plan will not cover both sides of the border in twenty twenty-seven, citing Lightcast and Randstad data on a wider wage-price gap in Canada. And finally, nearly half of employers say AI will make college degrees more important, according to a new Gallup and Lumina Foundation poll.