Paul Hastings Launches ‘Mapping the Trends: The Global Employer Update 2026’

• Geopolitical, economic and policy pressures are driving regulatory divergence across key markets, weakening the viability of uniform global workforce strategies.
• AI adoption is accelerating faster than regulation, while enforcement of existing laws is intensifying, shifting risk to employers.
• Paul Hastings’ latest global employment report draws on insights from employment law across 90 jurisdictions worldwide. 

LONDON (2 February 2026) – Paul Hastings today published its latest global employment report, “Mapping the Trends: The Global Employer Update 2026, offering a clear snapshot of how workplace regulation is changing and what that means for employers operating across borders.

Compiled by the firm’s employment practice and extensive network of employment law counsel worldwide, the report highlights the most pressing issues and trends shaping the employment landscape across 90 jurisdictions: the fragmentation of employment regulation, the rapid expansion of AI governance and a sharp rise in enforcement risk.

Global Rules Diverge as Local Realities Take Over

The report shows that global employment strategies are becoming harder to sustain as countries take increasingly different approaches to workplace regulation.

Employers operating across the UK, EU and U.S. now face conflicting legal expectations, making global standardisation more challenging.

	UK	EU	U.S.
Regulatory direction	Post-Brexit divergence with a distinct domestic employment agenda	Worker protection, transparency and collective rights embedded as policy tools	Limited federal reform; increasing reliance on state-level regulation
Key legislation / regulation	Employment Rights Act 2025; Fair Work Agency reforms; expanded enforcement powers	EU AI Act (employment AI as high-risk); pay transparency regime; GDPR framework and Omnibus proposal	State AI and pay transparency laws; federal anti-discrimination framework
Enforcement focus	Technology-enabled, proactive enforcement via Fair Work Agency	Coordinated labour inspections (e.g., Spain, France, Italy)	Litigation and agency-led enforcement; class action risk
Pay and equality	Growing scrutiny of equal pay and justification of decisions	Mandatory pay and reporting, and justification of pay gaps	State laws mandating pay range disclosure
AI regulation	Principles-based oversight; increasing focus on responsible use	Strict governance for high-risk AI under EU AI Act (obligations deferred to 2027)	Fragmented rules around bias testing and human oversight
Employer risk	Greater expectation to evidence and defend employment decisions	High upfront compliance burden and reduced employer discretion	Blanket workplace policies increasingly high risk across states

For global employers, this means running consistent employment policies across borders is no longer realistic without local flexibility and increasing legal risk.

Beyond Europe and North America, employment regulation is also becoming more locally driven. Governments in APAC and the Middle East are modernising labour laws to support growth and investment while parts of Africa and Latin America are tightening enforcement through inspections and compliance checks.

AI Adoption Accelerates as Regulation Struggles to Keep Pace

AI is now built into everyday workplace processes, from recruitment and performance management to monitoring and workforce planning, but regulation has struggled to keep up.

In the EU, the AI Act remains central to employer planning, with strict controls on high-risk employment-related AI systems delayed until 2027. In the U.S., the lack of a single federal framework has created a patchwork of state laws and enforcement activity, particularly around bias and human oversight. Across APAC and the Middle East, countries including Singapore, Japan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are developing AI governance alongside modern labour laws.

As a result, legal and compliance teams are playing a growing role in shaping how employers deploy AI, balancing the need to establish a governance framework to manage risk without stifling innovation.

Enforcement Ramps Up, Even Where the Law Has Not Changed

The report finds that enforcement is increasing faster than employment laws themselves.

Regulators are expanding inspection powers, raising penalties and using technology to gain greater visibility over employer practices. In Europe, coordinated enforcement campaigns are targeting working time, misclassification and pay transparency. Elsewhere, digital employment and immigration systems are enabling more proactive, data-driven oversight.

For employers, the message is clear: compliance alone is no longer enough. Businesses are increasingly expected to collate evidence upfront, showing that their pay decisions, dismissals and workforce structures are fair, lawful and defensible.

Suzanne Horne, head of the International Employment practice at Paul Hastings, comments: 

“In 2026, the employment law focus is shifting away from new legislation and towards how rigorously existing rules are enforced. Employers are facing heightened regulatory risk driven by increasing divergence across jurisdictions, the rapid adoption of workplace technology and greater scrutiny from regulators, key stakeholders and workers alike. As a result, the ability to evidence and defend employment decisions in real time has become just as important as compliance itself.”

The full report from Paul Hastings can be found at: Mapping the Trends: The Global Employer Update 2026

About Paul Hastings
With widely recognized elite teams across 17 core practices, Paul Hastings is a premier law firm with a culture of excellence focused on providing intellectual capital and superior execution globally to the world’s leading investment banks, asset managers and corporations.