The unemployment rate is low and the economy is still growing, but those out of work face the slowest pace of hiring in more than a decade. Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, calls it a “jobless boom.”
While big corporate layoff announcements typically grab the most attention, it has been the unwillingness of many companies to add workers that has created a more painful job market than the low 4.3% unemployment rate would suggest. It is also more bifurcated: The “low hire, low fire” economy has meant fewer layoffs for those with jobs, while the unemployed struggle to find work.
Read the article and I don’t get why they keep repeating the “low hire, low fire” line. Everywhere else is saying that this is the worst year for layoffs/firings in over 20 years on top of having as many new jobs as the height of the pandemic.
All that aside, I can’t help but feel like none of these articles ever mention just how god-fucking-awful job sites and hiring managers have become in the last few years. From my experience having been out of work for well over a year now, these 2 things are top of my list for barriers to employment. Job sites are a cesspool of scammers, fake posts to harvest info from desperate people, and intentionally shitty service to get users to pay for premium subscriptions. Hiring managers post the most batshit insane laundry list of requirements, are only interested in unicorns that will work for entry-level pay, jerk around applicants, and very frequently will put up job postings for positions that don’t exist because they “want to see what potential applicants are out there in case a position does open up” sometime in the nebulous future.
