Idk there’s a lot of diff variables and it’s complicated of course, I really don’t think it’s because “AI’s taking the jobs” tho.
Edit: for clarification, it’s never been worse. See link.
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/labor-market-data...
Unemployment rate has been going down for the past couple months, even though it was already lower than it has been for most of the period since the 70s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
That Yahoo page mentions these as a source, but it doesn't link them, presumably because they don't match its claims.
That said, both going down implies the people without jobs have stopped looking for jobs (which drops them from the unemployment rate calculation). Question then is why have they stopped and how are they getting by?
Or perhaps it's the other way around, new kids entering working age and not bothering to look for a job while living off their parents, and people in retirement age who won't retire for whatever reason?
If you are in Western Europe, then yes it's because of a shadow recession.
If you are in Seattle, then it's because the larger employers are shifting headcount to the Bay or abroad.
If you are not in the Bay, NYC, or Seattle, it's because domestic nearshoring during 2018-23 failed (eg. Cisco, NetApp, and Google in RTP)
I've written about this before on here [0][1]
Certainly the job market is more brutal than it was during the covid mass hiring spree, but it doesn't seem any worse than historical average. My view is anecdotal but I haven't seen any real data on the other side of it either.
If I was to bet, it seems that tasks that were given to new hires are now done by senior engineers and a prompt.
A collegue claims that the difference between an MBA and a mediocre compsci grad have disappeared due to vibe coding, so the compscis grads feel the job market is tougher because of increased competition.
All I know is that it's super hard to get junior devs to not be junior anymore because they don't have the opportunity anymore to learn on easy tasks.
It's also becuase the T20 CS/CE/ECE/EECS programs now graduate around 15-20K students a year.
If you don't attend a target you are going to have a hard time landing a job.
If you didn't do CS/CE/EE/ECE/EECS at MIT, CMU, Stanford, Cal, UIUC, GT, UT Austin, Purdue, UW, UCLA, UCSD, Ivies, UChicago, NYU, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, USC, UMinn, UMich, the Military academies or you weren't a Vet, it's hard to justify hiring. Throw in 1-2 well regarded regional schools in the mix and that becomes your entire hiring pipeline.
Geography also plays a role - early career remote work is over. You will have to start your career in the Bay or NYC, and maybe Austin and Seattle.
Companies are harvesting domestic salaries, possibly offshoring and slashing jobs, and blaming AI.
They want you to not oppose their offshoring, or stunning executive salaries, or God forbid join a union.
Who ya gonna blame? AI.
I don't think it's too hyperbolic to say that every single problem in hiring/job-seeking boils down lack of trust.