Pedagogue Systems
← The Brief

The Fed held rates with two votes for a hike while ADP's weekly hiring estimate slowed again.

ADP and Fountain put counts on AI-led interviews, AdeptID bought a travel nurse firm and RadNet agreed to buy a radiology staffing provider, and the EEOC rescinded its arrest-record guidance.

By Pedagogue Systems · November 1, 2026

The Fed held rates with two dissents for a hike, and ADP's weekly hiring estimate slowed for a second week.

The Federal Open Market Committee held the federal funds target range at 3.75% to 4% on Oct 28, after raising it in September. The vote was 10 to 2, with Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack preferring a quarter-point increase. The statement repeated that "Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little."

ADP's weekly estimate slowed to an average 16,750 private jobs a week in the four weeks ending Oct 10. The week ending Oct 3 now reads 17,500, below the 18,500 we reported, and ADP calls the figures preliminary. ASA's Staffing Index fell 0.8% to a rounded 94 for Oct 12 to 18, which some firms attributed to the Oct 12 holiday. Staffing jobs were 2.4% above the same week of 2025, down from 4.4% the week before, and new starts rose 5.7% from the prior week.

No SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator appeared for the week ended Oct 17. Bullhorn's page says it is "holding publication" of that edition "while we complete an additional review," pending hours data, with no date or cause given.

The Employment Cost Index for the third quarter puts private industry wages and salaries up 3.1% over 12 months and employer health-benefit costs up 6.4%. Adjusted for inflation, private industry wages and salaries fell 0.6% over the year, after a 0.4% year-over-year decline reported for the second quarter. ASA Research said Oct 30 that wages now contribute less to staffing margin compression and bill-rate growth has rebounded from a 2024 low, while total volume has stalled. Kforce reported third-quarter revenue of $357.8 million on Oct 26, up 7.5% year over year, and CEO Joseph Liberatore said "many companies remain hesitant to add full-time staff."

Pedagogue Systems' view. The employment series slowed in the latest week while staying above a year ago, and the Fed describes job gains that keep pace with the workforce. On the BLS figures, private real wages were below a year earlier in each of the last two quarterly reports, and ASA's analysis says wages are now a smaller share of margin pressure. The missing Bullhorn edition leaves the hours series a week behind, and Bullhorn has not said why.

ADP and Fountain put counts on AI-led interviews, and two vendors gated scheduling agents on manager approval.

ADP said on its Oct 28 earnings call that the AI interviewer in its Lyric recruiting product has completed more than 4,400 AI-led interviews since early September. It put the reduction in interview-related time at about 75%, according to a third-party transcript. It gave no baseline or method and attributed no revenue or margin to the feature. ADP's September onboarding claim for Lyric had the same shape: a percentage with no baseline.

Fountain, a frontline hiring platform, reported Oct 27 that AI-led interviews on its platform rose from 59,000 in 2025 to 293,000 in the first nine months of 2026. More than half of those came from two large employers. CEO Sean Behr said AI's share of first interviews went "from 2% to 14% in a single year." These are the vendor's own production counts.

Dayforce announced agents on Oct 27, including a scheduling agent that "recommends options for managers to approve," with availability phased through 2027. symplr's Time and Scheduling, launched Oct 26, recommends schedule changes "for managers to approve rather than build by hand." Neither vendor gave adoption counts.

Pedagogue Systems' view. ADP's 75% is a self-reported time figure for one feature with no baseline, and its interview count is activity, not an outcome. Fountain's 2% to 14% is AI's share of first interviews on one platform, and more than half of those AI-led interviews came from two employers. Dayforce and symplr put a manager's approval between the recommendation and the action, as Workday did for its hiring agent's outreach messages. None of the three releases says how often managers change what the software recommends, which is the figure that would show how much the gate does.

AdeptID bought its second travel nurse firm, and RadNet agreed to pay $350 million in cash plus shares for a radiology staffing provider.

AdeptID, an AI matching company, said Oct 27 it had acquired MedSource Travelers, a travel nurse and allied staffing firm. Terms were not disclosed. It is AdeptID's second healthcare staffing purchase after Lucid Staffing Solutions in October 2025. MedSource keeps its brand, and CEO Paul Gunnoe becomes AdeptID's President of Healthcare Staffing.

RadNet agreed Oct 26 to acquire ONRAD, which it describes as "a provider of teleradiology and in-hospital professional radiology staffing services." ONRAD has more than 130 contracted radiologists serving more than 225 hospital facilities in 26 states. The price is $350 million in cash plus 5 million RadNet shares at closing, both subject to adjustments. A further $210 million is due if ONRAD meets its 2027 EBITDA target. RadNet projects first-year revenue of $190 million to $200 million, with close expected in early 2027.

Pedagogue Systems' view. Both buyers are taking on clinicians. For AdeptID, the deal adds a second agency to run its matching against. For RadNet, it would add radiologists under contract and their hospital relationships. The RadNet price has three parts, cash, stock and an earnout that depends on 2027 results, so the final amount is not yet known.

The EEOC rescinded its arrest-record guidance, and OFCCP's Executive Order 11246 rules came off the books.

The EEOC voted Oct 28 to rescind its 2012 enforcement guidance on arrest and conviction records in hiring, and announced the vote on Oct 29. The rescission took effect immediately. We listed the rescission as pending under White House review on Oct 19. The agency says the rescission does not restore the policy statements the 2012 guidance replaced. Chair Andrea Lucas said it "does not give employers license to engage in unlawful discrimination."

OFCCP's rule rescinding the regulations that implemented Executive Order 11246 took effect Oct 26. The removed parts include 41 CFR 60-3, the contractor copy of the hiring-test guidelines we noted in August. The EEOC's copy at 29 CFR 1607 is untouched.

Colorado's Attorney General held its rulemaking hearing on Oct 26 as scheduled, and comments closed that night. The office has set no adoption date, and it must adopt the rules before the law takes effect on Jan 1, 2027.

Pedagogue Systems' view. Both federal actions remove guidance and regulation rather than add duties. A staffing firm that screens on criminal records no longer has the 2012 guidance as the agency's position, but Title VII has not changed. Federal contractors have lost the 60-3 copy of the hiring-test guidelines, while the EEOC copy stays in force. The EEOC's pending rule, sent to the White House in October, would rescind that copy's interpretive parts and appendix. The projected effective date is January 2027, and recordkeeping is not in that rule.

What we are watching.

  • Nov 4 and 5: TrueBlue, Kelly and AMN Healthcare third-quarter results.
  • Nov 6: The BLS October jobs report, covering the week ASA's index reported above.
  • Nov 10: ADP's next weekly estimate, and Workday's opposition to class certification in Mobley v. Workday.
  • Ongoing: Bullhorn's incident. Its status page reported Back Office access restored on Oct 24, while some connectors and report editing remain down. Bullhorn has not yet said whether anyone took customer data. Also the SIA | Bullhorn indicator's return.
  • Pending: The EEOC's final action on its Uniform Guidelines rescission, projected for November, and Colorado's final rules before Jan 1.

About Pedagogue Systems. Pedagogue Systems builds Cassion, a governed data foundation for staffing operations. It serves shift-based, credential-heavy operators in healthcare, industrial, and aviation staffing. It helps staffing operators keep operational records attributable and auditable before they automate decisions.

Sources.

This Brief was produced with AI assistance and adversarial review, then edited by a human before publishing. AI and people both make mistakes, so please verify anything critical independently. How we produce the Brief.

← Back to the Brief