Welcome in, today is Friday, October twenty-third, and we begin with Barclays, which per its own quarterly results is cutting about five thousand jobs as it leans on AI to lower costs. Barclays expects to cut about five thousand jobs, roughly five percent of its workforce, HRD Canada reports, citing the bank's third-quarter results. About one thousand of those positions have already closed, per that account, with the remainder expected by the end of twenty twenty-six. The same reporting says roughly sixty percent of the second-half reductions will fall in support functions, software developers among them, which gives workforce planners a dated read on which job families get restructured first. The cuts centre on the UK retail bank and remain subject to consultation, according to the results presentation. Some back-office work for UK operations sits in India, where a significant share is expected to land. Barclays posted third-quarter pretax profit of two point three billion pounds, up twelve percent, on income of seven point four billion, below analyst estimates. Industry reaction leans skeptical that AI is the real driver, with that revenue miss and a decade of steady headcount reduction read as giving cost cuts their own logic. Separately, the government has confirmed stricter protections in pregnancy-related dismissal cases. Personnel Today reports that tribunals will apply a stricter approach to unfair dismissal claims involving pregnant women and new parents from twenty twenty-seven. That summary is the extent of what has been published so far. Which leaves employers about a year to get dismissal decisions involving those employees onto a documented-evidence footing, from manager training through to how consultation and performance records are kept. Reaction among HR and payroll practitioners leans supportive but partial, with a recurring argument that leave granted without pay is effectively unusable for many employees. A quieter signal in that commentary: some practitioners report employees conceal pregnancy or pregnancy loss for fear of being seen as less committed, a limit on how far statutory protection reaches in practice. Also today, pay settlements. Personnel Today reports the median pay award now stands at three point one percent, up slightly on previous quarters but lagging inflation, which climbed in September. For reward teams heading into year-end reviews, that gap is the whole conversation, because real-terms pay keeps slipping even as the headline award edges up. Practitioner commentary leans toward reading the uptick as noise rather than a turn, with forecasts clustered in a narrow three-to-four percent band into twenty twenty-seven, and affordability rather than market pay pressure named as the binding constraint. Some of it also reframes the median against regional and real-earnings gaps, the recurring complaint being that benchmark figures sit well above typical take-home pay. Staying with the reforms, Personnel Today also reports that organisations are unprepared for imminent significant changes to trade union rights under the government's employment law reforms. No readiness figure accompanies that summary. The exposure here is procedural rather than ideological. Access protocols, site rules and manager guidance are the kind of thing that has to be settled before the obligation starts, not after. Practitioner commentary tends to stress scope rather than principle. A recurring emphasis is that the access right reaches employers with no union members and no recognition agreement at all, covers digital as well as physical access, and carries short response windows, which some frame as the part smaller and never-unionised workplaces are least prepared for. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Per Personnel Today, expenses and shift patterns will count as restricted variations when the fire-and-rehire protections take effect in March twenty twenty-seven. eBay is cutting about one thousand more jobs, roughly nine percent of staff, HRD Canada and STL News report, with severance and related costs put at up to one hundred fifty million dollars. HRD Canada reports Industry Minister Joly has given Cleveland-Cliffs fifteen days to reverse mass layoffs at Stelco, threatening fines and a forced asset sale over its Investment Canada Act job pledges. Per a Justice Department announcement reported by Townhall, Instacart will pay five million dollars to settle agency claims its visa-sponsorship recruitment made US applicants mail paper applications while foreign applicants applied online. And finally, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania has passed what HR Dive reports is the nation's first county-level paid parental leave mandate, reaching remote staff whose employers sit in other states.