I have been out since mid March and can say the official rate of 3.9% is BULLSH*T.

The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 3.9%–it went from 3.83% to 3.86%–and the labor force participation rate held steady at 62.7%

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/05/03/the-april-2024-jobs-report-whats-cooler-than-being-cool-steady-stable-growth/

I am an IT guy with a highly specialized area and NOBODY is lining up to hire me. I have seen job ads with HUNDREDS and sometimes THOUSANDS of applicants. How do I know this? Because Linkedin TELLS YOU HOW MANY APPLICANTS THERE ARE.

If the economy was so great there would not be hundreds/thousands of applicants. The social retards in Silicon Valley have laid off 262000 people in 2023. It has not shown any signs of slowing down with the layoffs at Tesla in the last few weeks.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/03/tech-layoffs-2023-list/?guccounter=1

I have put out about 100 resumes and only gotten 2 interviews. And its not just the IT sector - its EVERYONE. I have seen tons of non-IT people looking for work.

I would say the unemployment rate is at least DOUBLE what they are saying. Maybe even TRIPLE.

Are you just applying in tech or other areas?

Maybe.

But some of those applicants are ME, and I have a job. I'm just always looking for a better one and I'm not the only one. Linkedin makes it so easy to apply....

I’ve never seen more “help wanted/now hiring signs”

Yeah IT careers always seemed a bit risky for my taste.   Too many fucking imports in that business.

And I really hate the knowledge that my resume is being rejected by either a HR intern that doesn't know what my resume says or a piece of AI that doesn't understand what my resume says.

Attached File

This administration lies about everything. They are genuine pieces of shit…

OP check out IT jobs at hospital amd health systems.

If I was kidnapped by the “some nation/religion etc that was known for being honest” locked in a sealed room and told they would give me O2 based on my answer if the US gov was truthful or not…I would have to say no.

You're looking at the rainbows-and-unicorns U3 rate the politicians and their MSM sock puppets like to quote.
For a more realistic number, refer to the U6 rate: LINK

Sometimes I wonder how many of those job postings or applicants are even real. See also: Dead Internet Theory.

IIRC, unemployment numbers are also a revolving base, as people unemployed over a certain time are not included in the numbers. I think it might be 6 months?

The LinkedIn "applicants" isn't accurate, as they include the number of people who looked at the job, too. And I doubt all those "applicants" are real candidates, a lot of headhunters/recruiters bombarding the positions with their talent pool.

I really hate the jobs that are contract jobs that 5 different recruiting firms post. 1 job now counts as 5? F that noise.

Workforce participation rate paints a more conclusive picture

LinkedIn would never sensationalize things as a marketing gimmick, but those government economists are agents of globohomo.

H1B's need to go...

I would have to add recent uptick in SSDI claims

What is your niche specialty?

Zero Hedge had stated that most of the jobs being taken up are minimum wage or similarly paid low wage positions, many of which are being filled by migrants.

Hell the government has no clue how many people are in the US, they sure as hell don't know who is or isn't looking for employment.

Yea, there is something going on with the "jobs" too.

For over a year now I have seen hundreds of the same jobs posted over and over.  Theme is they have mid level reqs but are paying 1.5x top tier pay.

You could get anyone at a sweet gig to jump ship at that pay.  Even the best and most well compensated.  

Based on what I have seen there isn't a lack of qualified people nor an unrealistic compensation package but there definitely is a lack of desire to fill the positions.

I didn't notice it at first but now it just looks like the big corps are playing politics again and manipulating public perception.  Just like they all crashed the economy "out of over abundance of caution" they are pumping the jobs numbers.

For a long, long, loooong time, high tech was the ticket to riches, everyone was a comp sci major in the universities and colleges; and of course, Kali's Gov Newsom thought so too, and he pushed hard for that job sector, and now high tech IT is crashing hard.

3.9% is false.

Now factor in all the jobs that are worthless.

And all the people just chilling on welfare, etc.

And it's prob really 80%+.

Dang most the job reqs I see for my line of work are maybe 30/40 applicants. Hell dude got fired for performance 3 months ago just landed a new gig with a raise right down the street.

Also if I'm not mistaken unemployment is only those who are actively looking or something like that. not those that have given up.

I dont know how anyone can be out of a job right now.

Can you do anything other than IT?  There's tons of trades work out there...

I had a recruiter email me about a job that I was perfect for. I replied with my current resume. Two hours later he emailed me that it had been filled. Uh huh.

The unemployment numbers that .gov puts out are as manipulated as much as the inflation numbers are.  For example, during the dark days of the BHO administration, they were releasing new, single family dwelling numbers built and including apartment units and condos to make it look like home construction was on the rise....when, in fact, it wasn't.

What is your specialty?

I've got 4 open roles in IT for high level developers and can't fill them.  It's either people who are too junior but really proud of their React webpage and aren't qualified or we offer the job and their current company pays them more to stay.

A number of companies out there are floating jobs to make it look like they are hiring and "growing".  They aren't.  Well known in the industry.

About 6 months ago I applied for a network job with a large telecom.  The job was very niche with maybe a few hundred people in the US with the experience.  

My resume got reviewed, then the job closed as unfilled.  It was floated again a few months later.

I have also had a few interviews with organizations that were honest (finally) that they needed someone, but couldn't afford market wages.

I could bring a TON of experience to the table as a CEO or GM but there's no chance in Hell that I'm giving up my retirement years.

I must of missed it.  What was the OPs nitch IT role?

Could it be so nitch there is no longer any demand because there is a few hundred jobs and that number is shrinking faster than the job seekers are retiring?

Homeless went up 37%

/all positions, all shifts, hiring bonuses

Another thing I've noticed, everybody is hiring but their HR and hiring departments are all "working" from home for 30 minutes per day so it's impossible for applicants to get in the door.

While I can sympathize with a job loss and a frustrating search... when it's impacting you, your perspective will always be skewed.  There are a LOT of job openings and help-wanted for retail jobs, and you could go get one, quite literally *today* if you wanted - but that's not what you are after.

As for the IT industry, I've been at a Director level position in the industry for the better part of a decade in a multi-billion dollar company, working in an SRE and Cloud/IaC Automation role and AI has changed the landscape considerably.  For jobs that previously required me to find people that knew IaC, Python, TF and other coding-level skills - I no longer need that.  I can now bring in people that have only a cursory knowledge of these tools and technologies and use AI to augment them - and not need to pay them as much since they don't need to be highly skilled programmers or developers.

Sometimes being a highly specialized person with a specific IT skill actually works against you.  You could be the best SAP admin or Oracle DBA - and those are very highly paid positions - but the pool for hiring for those positions is very small since you have to find a business that uses those in-house.  Especially when you compare a specialized IT job against something that most businesses have a need for like a DevOps Engineer, or a SysAdmin role.  In this new AI world, it's more valuable to be a jack-of-all-trades in IT and know how to leverage AI to bolster and augment skills you already have.

Also, those numbers of applicants are bunk.  For the positions I hire for, I get a TON of applicants, but the majority are pretty much spam applicants.  A guy who worked as a call center banker that has no education or experience and is applying for a Site Reliability Engineer or DevOps position?  C'mon...  Someone who is applying for an job around automation engineering, but their application and resume has nothing related to IT in it - bots and people just spam applications regardless of qualifications - so those numbers you are seeing are bunk.  Even during COVID when we were desperate to find and hire people, we were still getting a LOT of applications - again, with the majority of them being unrelated and not remotely qualified to even apply.  With so many sites making it as easy as clicking a button to apply for jobs, a lot abuse it.

That's why you negotiate a golden parachute in your employment contract. Robert Nardelli got a severance package over $200m for mismanaging Home Depot back in the 2000s.

Your value to an employer is what you can offer them right now, day 1.  Your skills are right there on your resume. Sadly, good character is hard to describe in your skill set.  No company wants to invest time, supervision and training in an individual who might turn out to be a (loser) or leave for a better job.  Employers who don't seek and invest in good character will always have high turnover.

Unfortunately, the left has made character a quality that you are not allowed to ask for.

I'm on week 3 of running an ad through ziprecruiter for auto mechanics.  70% of the applicants refuse to return calls, texts, emails, etc.  I suspect most are just filling out applications to keep that govt check coming.

The quality of online applicants is horrible. Back way before Indeed and LinkedIn, my boss ran some job reqs on Monster. We'd get a couple hundred. Filtering them was fun, and one applicant stood out. Absolutely no skills relevant to the position (content coordinators), but she "knew what the customers wanted." Her previous experience was "dancing."

Tech hiring is really bad right now, it's even worse than last year. A lot more layoffs coming I'm afraid.

We get candidates that we hire, we clear them through .gov and they work for two weeks then quit with another agency job already lined up. FFS.

Yep

Try using the premium version of LinkedIn for a bit, I've heard that helps.

Other than my first job out of college I've never applied with the masses and hoped my resume made it through, I've always known someone who referred me to the hiring manager or I was sought out and recruited.  

Go through al your contact and see if their employers are hiring, then they could more directly connect you with the hiring manager.  Alternately, if you find a position but you don't know anyone currently there, just post on LinkedIn or FB that you are "looking at a position with company X, does anyone know anyone there?" and maybe someone can connect/refer you.

As far as the economy, the numbers are always massaged, and it's not like any party has ever gotten into power and corrected or fixed them, they always just take the baton and run.  So, it is what it is, don't get to wrapped up in it, it's not going to help your job search.

Even the H1Bs are struggling. There's a huge push towards offshoring going on, why bother importing them when they can just work over there. This is nothing new of course but it has really ramped up lately.

And it's not just India, companies are hiring in South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Anywhere but the US.

Our company has been burning through layoffs, but it's because other companies are winning the work we've had for too long, the work isn't going away.  Lots of insourcing going on right now too.

in low paying service jobs, yes.

Tech is a bloodbath right now.  Jobs with hundreds of applicants in hours, reduced pay for similar jobs.

I just spent 5 months unemployed.

Philippines and Vietnam are on fire right now, from an offshoring perspective.

Yes and no.  Tech in the healthcare sector is hiring like crazy.  Marketing technology too.

Or Accenture, who has 4000+ US based jobs open right now.

If you’re applying for a job, you MUST update your resume to match many keywords in the job description or else the automated process will pass you by. Also, if you have ANY form of DEI going, you MUST list it or again, you’ll get passed by. Companies are forced by govt and investors to hit those numbers or risk losing business.

My job (and that of ~20 other managers where I worked) was eliminated end of May 2023. Coming up on a year and still haven't found a replacement job. Been substitute teaching for the past 8 months, but it's contract type work so there are no benefits and the hourly pay rate is $20/hr less than what I was earning. I'm unwilling to relocate to another state, which is really hindering my ability to find a job in my line of work and also the industry is contracting and healthcare systems (one of the two employers for emergency managers, the other being government) are either eliminating those jobs or converting them to independent contractor jobs that pay 30-50% less.

Nailed it.

One of the lessons I've learned from history is nations fell when they rejected reality.

We have been papering right over reality with such sunshine figures they even have to "readjust" the selected numbers a week after the headline.

Hard times are coming as a result.  The good news is aint no one going to have patience for anything ESG.

I wonder how this will all play out in the long run.

Usually unemployment is a limited time frame from my understanding. Once the time is up back to work.  If we have a real recession hit and the jobs aren’t there to get…shit show inbound.