Something Is Breaking Inside the Modern Workplace

December 16, 2025: We start with new data from EY showing that workplace culture—specifically how people treat each other—has become the number one reason employees stay at their company, outranking pay, flexibility, and career growth. We then examine growing evidence that AI and remote work may be accelerating loneliness at work, and why that matters in a society already experiencing declining trust, community, and social connection. We also look at why 2026 is shaping up to be a labor market reset rather than a boom or bust, how the U.S. government is rebuilding its internal talent engine to regain institutional capability, what McKinsey's planned layoffs reveal about the unbundling of white-collar work, and what the latest jobs data tells us about where leverage is shifting between employers and employees.