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.