The Job Market Is Hell

"He had a solid résumé, he thought: a paid internship at a civic-consulting firm, years of volunteering at environmental-defense organizations, experience working on farms and in parks as well as in offices, a close-to-perfect GPA, strong letters of recommendation. He would move anywhere on the West Coast, living out of his car if he had to. He would accept a temporary, part-time, or seasonal gig, not just a full-time position."

"Right now, millions of would-be workers find themselves in a similar position. Corporate profits are strong, the jobless rate is 4.3 percent, and wages are climbing in turn. But payrolls have been essentially frozen for the past four months. The hiring rate has declined to its lowest point since the jobless recovery following the Great Recession. Four years ago, employers were adding four or five workers for every 100 they had on the books, month in and month out. Now they are adding three."

"At the same time, the process of getting a job has become a late-capitalist nightmare. Online hiring platforms have made it easier to find an opening but harder to secure one: Applicants send out thousands of AI-crafted résumés, and businesses use AI to sift through them. What Bumble and Hinge did to the dating market, contemporary human-resources practices have done to the job market. People are swiping like crazy and getting nothing back."

A recent graduate applied to 200 jobs with strong credentials and received almost no responses. Millions of job seekers face similar outcomes despite corporate profits, a 4.3 percent unemployment rate, and rising wages. Payroll additions have stalled for months and the hiring rate has dropped to its lowest level since the post-Great Recession recovery, with employers now adding about three workers per 100 instead of four or five. Online platforms and AI tools make openings easier to find but harder to win, as applicants mass-send AI-crafted résumés and employers use AI to filter candidates, producing widespread applicant frustration.

Read at The Atlantic