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Because the people they have an “in” are working for companies that arent hiring

Or they worked for a small number of large firms that have reigned in referrals.

Like how a lot of people moved to Seattle for its tech scene but then realized that all we really have for large scale employement is Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing. All the other firms are lower headcount satellite offices.

I don't know where your expectations come from but people in my network are either also unemployed, or working for companies not hiring for my role/region/tech/seniority.

The hiring market is broken when there's a glut of applicants. Hiring tools do not make it easy to manage a flood of applicants, and "easy apply" features make it even worse. This was true before AI and it's more true now.

Source: I have 20 years experience as tech recruiter, and 11 as a developer

People move nationally or internationally, so the old "in" is not useful anymore. In my case I moved internationally and my connections moved to different countries.