I’ll be graduating university in a couple years and I’ve been looking at the job market in a couple different countries and it seems like there are more applicants than jobs with many people struggling to find jobs . It feels suffocating. Is this because the world population is standing at 8.2 billion compared to 4 billion just 50 years ago?
Why has the job market been trashy recently?
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As each year goes by, that means more people are legally able to work (14), people turn 16/18 and a wider range of jobs open for them. People graduate at 21-22 and more jobs open up to them. Overall, every year, the job market gets competitive even more.
A few reasons, one being the residual impact from COVID, another being that we’re in a transitionary period, in terms of economic development; tons of employers are just unsure of what’s coming.
Economic conditions, I believe. However, You are smart to start watching the job market NOW, rather than waiting until the day after you graduate.
Neoliberalism
Like others said, COVID and economic conditions, but if you’re in the US, a bunch of government workers also got laid off, so you’re competing with them as well.
It’s been trashy for a while dude. This is a third world country, but the BLS defines away unemployment and artificially increases the jobs created to make it look good but average people are struggling and lucky to be employed.
Always has been. I’ve been told it was a shitty market ever since I entered the market in 2006. That’s like 20 years of “the market is just bad right now.”
It’s called a recession! And a trade war because the adults in charge are not actually adults.
Outsourcing, growth at all costs, shareholders
The job market in a couple of years may be very different than it is now just like it was very different 2 years ago. But generally speaking, it’s cruddy now because we are headed into a recession. Stock market is down, we’re in a trade war, no one knows what’s going to happen, gobs of government workers are getting let go…
What I’m about to say very well may get down voted. But the truth is, jobs are a scam. Unlike the old days, jobs just aren’t reliable anymore. Nor do they pay enough. Working a job and living a decent life seems to be a thing of the past now. I’m over it now. You either have to become a business owner, or deal with the stress of working a job. That’s just how it is these days
I think its a number of things but all likely rooted in the post covid inflation combined with high interrest rates. The inflation forced employers to have to pay more, also likely decreasing the amount of potential openings. That ultimately gave inflation more momentum.
Then interrest rates go up to cool inflation. But the .gov doesn’t stop deficit spending. For interrest rates to cool inflation money has to stop being printed at deficit levels. Otherwise it doesn’t work and now rates are high so businesses have probably cut back on borrowing.
Uncertainty. Companies don’t hire when they don’t known where the economy’s going, if there’s gonna be tariffs – or maybe not.
It was a shitty job market when I entered it in 1993
Are in the US? Many companies went on gigantic hiring sprees between 2021 and 2024, spending money like drunken sailors and over-hiring nearly everywhere. We’re feeling the cyclical affects of that right now. Plus a couple of years of higher interest rates and the instability caused by unknowns such as the Tariffs are really putting the brakes on hiring.
Have you not paid attention to world events for the past decade?
Because Trump is destroying the economy and no company is going to be hiring right now. The country is that fucked.
Recently?
A part of it is the problem created by the ever-increasing need for efficiency across all economic sectors as-well. It’s generally cheaper and often more profitable in the long run to invest in technology rather than human capital.
You’ve got a couple years left of school, so I imagine you’ve encountered the use of AI in academia as a shortcut that some students take.
Lots of companies are doing the same thing. When I started working 15 years ago, I worked on a team with 10 people, one supervisor and an assistant (me). We all had at least one uni degree. That team is now one AI specialist, and the supervisor. The big wigs are using it as a shortcut to keep costs down.
3 million graduates a year, with almost no consideration toward the future availability of jobs (or potential for job growth) when accepting applicants into programs doesn’t help.