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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

Thanks. It is very funny how young people perceive this market. Unemployment is basically lower than it has ever been and people are panicking. Prime age labor force participation rate near all-time record highs. The people are almost dangerously over-employed.

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I'm young-ish transitioning to middle age (36).

The job market is AWFUL for my generation, and pretty much always has been since we entered the workforce.

Unemployment might be low if you think that folks with advanced STEM degrees can go and get a part time gig at McDonald's.

If you look at meaningful employment - where one can make enough to live near where they work, save a bit, pay food/rent, and spend a bit for their leisure or health, well....no we are not over-employed. We are in a death spiral.

You seem to be mostly making a cost of living argument, with which I wouldn't disagree. But you can't employ/pay your way out of those costs, the problem is on the supply side. So that seems spurious to an employment rate conversation.

I am slightly older than you, and literally don't know a person who isn't employed and doing well (including plenty your age and younger), though I am aware they exist.

It's almost like anecdotal reports are meaningless, and we should rely on well sourced data to determine how things like the economy are doing.

Spoiler alert: there is no indication we are in a death spiral, though in my opinion Trump seems to be doing his best to correct that. Fortunately, I don't think he's up to the task.

I founded a company partially because I spent 2 years on the job hunt and got absolutely nothing. So yeah, here's one example of someone who isn't doing well - me.

I was doing terribly. Honestly, I still am. I've just been fortunate enough to have conceived a product some people in my city want. Will the business scale and succeed? I hope so, because I'm fucked if it goes south.

And yes, anecdotal data sucks. But I'd take that over whatever bullshit the Trump administration says. Especially after they fired the BLS statisticians.

Genuine question: how did you conduct your job search? What steps did you take during those two years? Do you have a degree?

I want to back this guy up because I was in the same hole.

See my above post. Basically, tons of applications, going to networking events 2-3x a week, being active in local tech Slack/Discord groups, bothering the lead writer of the local tech/startup newsletter, etc.

LinkedIn applications, applying to every PM role available in my metro area that I could, attending as many tech & startup events as I could. I got to know the main writer of the local startup/tech news aggregator pretty well and would pester him regularly for contacts at new local companies that he's talking with. I was active in my city's tech Slack/Discord community.

I do have a degree albeit on not in STEM. Also have an advanced degree (also not STEM) that helped the company I was with from 2018 until 2021.

Sounds like you're on to something, hope that's what turns things around for you.

Thank you. Fingers crossed

I'd like to back you up and point out that I've considered doing the same. If VCs will throw money at anyone promising to advance the SOTA in AI, and I can promise that, why am I bothering to keep looking for research positions or with a financially flailing industry employer?

Fair enough. My product is very much non-tech (CPG - beverage). But you're right that VCs are still throwing money around like its the ZIRP days. If you have an idea, go for it.

LOL the primary reason I haven't done it was needing to come up with a concrete business model and MVP.

Because it measures open job listing. All of the job listing i've apply to and never hear back from still exist too. Take from that what you will.

I can assure you that has happened before. I just find it amusing. A professional now 25-30 years old started their career in what was the most spectacularly overheated labor market of all time. Now it is very very slightly cooling off, still way hotter than historical norms, and there are many complaints. But it is all relative.

The government has spent decades figuring out ways to lie about this. Are you actually shocked? The number of men who can buy a home and have a stay-at-home-wife on a random job they got out of high school is nigh 0% when this used to be the norm.

Leaving aside your misguided RETVRN subtext, none of this really comes down to government policy. All of it is an emergent wage-cost spiral. As soon as your neighbors collectively decide to have 2 incomes per household it becomes untenable to attempt to be the last household with only 1 income.

The government's demand for infinite migrants lowered wages, that is a fact.

Haha, you speak of ivory towers without even knowing so

In far more words this entire position is simply "let them eat cake" but without the excuse of a royal court distorting reality.

Willful ignorance is worse.

Correct. The prime age labor force participation rate is 0.8% lower than the all-time record highest in recorded US history, January 1999.

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