Mercado laboral resiliente, alivio de sanciones impositivas, aumento del uso de la IA agéntica en las compras

[Gene Marks, host]

Hey everybody, it's Gene Marks, and welcome to this week's episode of the Paychex Thrive Week in Review. This is where we take a few items in the news that impacts your small business and mine, and we talk about it a little bit. So, let's talk jobs first.

So, the U.S. labor market continues to hold up despite economic uncertainty, although hiring remains relatively subdued. Paychex reported that in its small business jobs index was 99.23 in July, which was slightly above the first half 2026 average, suggesting that employment among businesses with fewer than 50 workers remains stable.

Hourly earnings increased 2.86% year over year, while weekly earnings rose 3.14%, helped by the strongest growth in hours worked in more than five years. So, that is good strong signs for the economy's small business hiring.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department data reported by the Associated Press show job openings slipping from 7.54 million to 7.36 million in June, while layoffs remain steady at about 1.8 million and hiring edged up to 5.3 million. Employers have added an average of 92,000 per 1,000 jobs per month during 2026, a substantial improvement from 2025.

Overall, the data depicts a labor market that is stable rather than booming, with employers remaining cautious but avoiding widespread layoffs.

So, how does this impact your small business and mine? Well, basically, we can tell you that the labor market remains cheap and remains – sorry, remains tight – which means that getting workers will not be cheap, which means that we have to continue to be competitive with our compensation and the benefits that we offer to attract and retain the best employees possible.

Even with all the uncertainties that small businesses are dealing with in 2026, it is clear that hiring remains resilient, employment remains resilient. And even though we hear about all the threats about AI and it's going to replace all these jobs, haven't seen that happening yet. In fact, small businesses continue to hire and remain steady in their workforces, as well.

So, hopefully that's indicative of your business as well as my business. Speaking personally, it is indicative of my business and most of my clients.

All right, let me take a moment to talk about summertime. Smoothing over those same HR challenges your business grapples with every year at this time will help. Seasonal hiring, scheduling gaps, and compliance deadlines immediately come to mind, right? Don't you want to relax a little more? That's where Paychex comes in. They have the HR tools and solutions to set your business up for summer hiring surges and onboarding, as well as a mid-year compliance checklist to keep you on track.

Their Summer Planning guide provides the steps to be proactive and plan properly. So, check out go.paychex.com/summer for more details. Paychex is your umbrella. Enjoy the beach.

All right. Now let's get back to our episode, right?

So, we talked before about jobs. Now, let's talk about taxes, and there's good news for small businesses according to the IRS. The IRS is making it significantly easier for small businesses and other taxpayers with good compliance histories to receive relief from certain tax penalties.

Under the new automatic exemption from penalty program, eligible taxpayers will no longer have to formally request the IRS's traditional first-time abate relief. Instead, the agency will automatically identify qualifying taxpayers and waive certain failure-to-file, failure-to-pay, and failure-to-deposit penalties. Eligibility generally requires a clean compliance record for the previous three years.

The program begins rolling out during 2026 and will replace first-time abate for eligible returns with original due dates beginning Jan. 1, 2027. Taxpayers must still pay the underlying taxes and interest, and those who do not qualify can continue seeking relief based on a reasonable cause.

The reform could substantially expand access to relief. Estimates include more than one and a half million taxpayers annually could benefit compared with roughly 220,000 receiving similar abatements previously.

It's a pretty big deal. It basically means that if you fall behind on your taxes, but you eventually pay up but you miss deadlines and you really have a clean record for at least three years beforehand, you're not going to automatically be assigned a penalty. I mean, yeah, you got to pay the taxes, of course, and you will be you'll have to pay whatever interest is owed, but when it comes to penalties that the IRS is going to assess, again, if you've got a clean record, a clean compliance record for the past three years, you're pretty much going to get rid of those penalties. You're going to be waived through for those penalties, which is really great news for a lot of taxpayers who could save you a lot of money.

So, good news from the IRS when it comes to that. I don't want to encourage you to miss your deadlines. By all means, please pay on time, and because if you do, you're still gonna to pay, you know, interest. And once you make that mistake for the first time, obviously these penalty abatements aren't, you know, they're gonna go away. You have to have a clean record for three years. But for those of us that have had a clean record, if we miss a deadline or can't make a payment right away, we're gonna get some relief from the IRS, and that's certainly great news, I think, for a lot of small businesses.

Okay, in today's – or this week's – AI news of the week, we're gonna talk about AI shopping and how it's surging. Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how consumers begin their online shopping journeys.

According to Salesforce's state of commerce research that's been highlighted by ZDNet, the use of agentic AI search as the first step in online shopping has increased 200% during the past year. The research surveys 3,450 commerce professionals and 4,690 consumers and incorporated business behavioral data from more than one and a half billion shoppers. The growth is forcing retailers to move AI from experimentation into everyday operations.

• 86% of commerce leaders say AI is raising customer expectations, while 71% view AI as a core element of commerce operations.

Among companies already using agentic AI, 35% are focusing on expanding deployments rather than running proofs of concepts. Retailers, therefore, need more than one customer-facing chatbot. Successful AI commerce increasingly requires connected systems, reliable product and customer data, integrated workflows, and coordination across departments.

The message for businesses is that AI-powered shopping is quickly becoming a mainstream sales and discovery channel rather than an experimental technology.

So, what do we mean? It means that there are more and more consumers that are going to their AI chatbots – ChatGPT or Claude or Copilot – and making requests of you know searching for products that they want and then having those agents go out and get those products for them.

Others are using voice-powered, you know, devices like Amazon’s Alexa and ordering products through there. It sends an agent out, it finds the product, gets the price, makes the purchase, and then has it shipped to you. It's agents, it's bots that are out there.

Now, I spoke about this on a previous Week in Review, and I wrote about this in Forbes, so I also just want to re-emphasize again: Your website is probably not ready to accept agents, and it needs to be. There are various products and protocols that need to be put into place on your site so that when an agent, and again, we're seeing an increase of 200% of them just this year. When an agent visits your site, it can recognize it, it can navigate it, it can find stuff, it can select stuff, it can purchase the stuff, and then have it shipped to you.

If your site is not agent-ready, those agents are gonna bypass your site and go somewhere else. So, talk to your web development team or your webmaster or whoever is providing internet services for you on your website and make sure that your website is agent-ready because AI shopping it is surging this year and it is sure to continue to surge going forward.

My name is Gene Marks, and you have been watching or listening to this week's episode of the Paychex Thrive Week in Review. Remember, if you go to go.paychex.com/summer, you can get Paychex's Summer Planning Guide. So, it can help you take the steps to be proactive and plan all of your HR needs appropriately.

If you would like advice or tips in running your business, go and get our Paychex Thrive newsletter. It's at paychex.com/thrive. And please, of course, follow us on YouTube or your favorite podcast channel so you'll continue to get updates on this very important news every week that impacts your small business and mine.

Again, you've been watching and listening to the Paychex Thrive Week in Review. My name is Gene Marks. We will see you again next week with more news that impacts your small business. Take care.

My name is Gene Marks, and you've been watching or listening to the Paychex Thrive Week in Review podcast. A few things to take away. First of all, if you are in need of HR or payroll help in your business, consider Paychex. Go to paychex.com/meetpaychex. That's P-A-Y-C-H-E-X.com forward slash M-E-E-T-P-A-Y-C-H-E-X. Please follow this podcast on your podcast platform or on YouTube if you are enjoying the content so you stay up to date on our latest episodes.

And if you need help or advice or tips in running your business, get our Paychex Thrive newsletter. Go to paychex.com/thrive and sign up for it there.

Hope you found this information helpful. I'll be back with you next week with more news that impacts your small business and mine. My name is Gene Marks. Thanks so much for watching or listening. Take care.

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