Mapping The Trends: The Global Employer Update 2026

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Executive Summary: Global Themes

Local Realities Now Outweigh Global Strategies

Global employment regulation, and the way multinational employers respond to it, is increasingly being shaped by geopolitics. Trade tensions, regional conflicts, industrial policy, supply chain realignment and shifting domestic political priorities are accelerating regulatory divergence between major economies. As a result, the viability of uniform global workforce strategies continues to weaken, placing greater emphasis on understanding and responding to the local political, economic and regulatory context.

The United States continues to exert significant influence on global corporate governance practices, particularly for employers with a material U.S. footprint. Risk management models, litigation-driven compliance approaches and technology governance frameworks developed in the U.S. are often adopted across multinational organisations — sometimes ahead of, or in tension with, local legal requirements in other jurisdictions. At the same time, internal regulatory fragmentation at the federal and state levels adds further complexity for employers operating across multiple U.S. markets.

In Europe, while reforms to stimulate growth and innovation with regulatory simplification are gaining momentum, the EU continues to embed worker protection, transparency and collective rights into its regulatory framework. This reflects a broader strategic use of employment regulation as a social and economic policy tool, reinforcing a compliance-led model that does not always align with more market-driven approaches seen elsewhere. The UK, pursuing its own employment law agenda outside the EU framework, further contributes to regional divergence.

Beyond the transatlantic sphere, the employment law changes are increasingly aligned with national development strategies. In the Middle East and parts of APAC, workforce regulation is being modernised to support foreign investment, economic diversification and talent mobility. In Latin America and Africa, employment frameworks are being shaped by domestic political priorities, social protection objectives and labour market reform programmes. These developments reflect the localisation of employment law around national economic objectives.

For multinational employers, this divergence means global “one-size-fits-all” employment strategies are becoming even harder to implement in practice. Organisations are increasingly required to design flexible global frameworks that allow for meaningful local adaptation, supported by strong governance, regional oversight and local legal input. The challenge is no longer simply tracking legal change, but managing the operational risk created by regulatory fragmentation — a trend that is set to intensify as political and economic pressures continue to reshape employment laws worldwide.

The Evolution of AI and Data Regulation as AI Usage Is Increasingly Pervasive

While AI isn’t truly ubiquitous yet, it is more widespread and increasingly embedded in the modern workplace. It is evident in various employer processes (such as recruitment, performance management, work allocation, benefit provision and monitoring), everyday work tools (from email filters and copilots to our phones, smart devices and apps) and as the driver to reshape the workforce. In many workplaces, employees are testing AI tools to innovate, as employers look to put a legal framework and governance around the accelerating use cases. Inevitably, AI regulation is lagging behind the pace of workplace innovation, a challenge compounded by ongoing changes in closely linked data laws.

In Europe, the EU AI Act framework for employment-related AI systems continues to evolve, with the implementation of key aspects of the act concerning high-risk AI deferred until 2027, and there are other proposals to lessen the burden on employers, which include revisiting aspects of GDPR. Where this lands in 2026 and beyond is still up in the air.

In the United States, federal AI regulation remains heavily fragmented and misaligned — employers with a significant presence across the U.S. should tread carefully when considering blanket policies if workplace technology regulation is playing a part. Enforcement actions in the U.S. are driving compliance strategies, with many U.S.-based companies seeking to ensure they remain compliant around bias testing and the requirement (or lack of requirement) for human oversight.

In APAC (Singapore, Japan) and the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia), AI governance and modernised labour frameworks are being developed extensively. How these regulations are implemented as many multinational companies expand to new territories will require thought from employers on the governance of these frameworks in order to demonstrate compliance while reaping the innovation benefits.

Increased Enforcement Risk and the Growing Weight of the Employer’s Burden of Proof

Enforcement risk is rising faster than legislative change. Globally, we are not seeing significant amounts of fundamentally “new” employment law (the UK being a key exception) — but we are seeing increased enforcement action from authorities and regulators alike. This is typically arising from increased inspection powers, higher penalties, and increased oversight and governance of payroll, immigration and data.

In Africa (Nigeria, Gabon, South Africa) we have seen increased numbers of labour inspections and enforcement, particularly around immigration and data protection enforcement. Europe (Spain, France, Italy) has seen labour inspectorates using coordinated enforcement campaigns to crack down on violations of working time, misclassification, and health and safety obligations.

EU-wide, we see pay transparency and pay reporting move centre stage, requiring employers to justify their pay practices, and giving workers and their representatives the ability and evidence to challenge their pay, relative to peers. Separately, in some Nordic jurisdictions (Norway, Sweden), case law and legislative reform have significantly narrowed employer discretion in dismissals and restructuring processes.

Further afield, in the Americas (Peru, Chile, Colombia), courts and labour authorities continue the expansion of protections around dismissal we have seen in recent years, including heightened protections for outsourced workers and those in atypical employment, with employer rationale in any scenarios relating to dismissal under heightened scrutiny. In APAC (Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan), the growing digitisation of employment records is assisting regulators with their visibility of employment and HR practices across the region.

The deployment of technology by regulators as a tool in enforcement action is also on the rise. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the Qiwa platform continues to play a vital role in managing employment relationships. In the UK, at a Paul Hastings event in London, the chair of the UK’s new enforcement body, the Fair Work Agency, confirmed the close focus on the use of technology as part of a proactive and widely accessible approach to the enforcement of employment regulations.

For global employers, increased regulation and enforcement risk means proactive and preventive compliance is essential. However, when those compliance strategies are challenged as inadequate, employers must equally be ready to mount a strong defence against potential legal and regulatory claims.

*All content is accurate at the date of writing.