re: Is the job market "bad"?

I think it depends on the field.

The DOGE cuts at the fedgov level put a lot of former federal contractors in the market at once, many competing for the same jobs.

One of the big hurdles is that a huge chunk of fedgov IT infrastructure is either legacy systems and/or limited by security and privacy ratings so that it doesn't fully translate to the corporate world.

For example, I spent 12+ years supporting a CDC website that moved from static HTML to Drupal 7 to WordPress. But, due to security protocols I was mostly limited to frontend development (other contractors were responsible for server maintenance and software patching). We also had to use Adobe Analytics for privacy/security reasons. Unfortunately most corporate web developer positions are looking for some combination of full stack, expertise in Angular or Next.js, and Google Analytics.

The unemployment rate for July was 4.1% from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. That’s essentially full employment since a percentage of the population has no intention to work. By the way that’s a great economic statistic and sign of a thriving economy. So yes it may be hard to find a job if you are unemployed or trying to move up.

I agree with this.

Too many individuals that lack needed qualifications for the positions that need to be filled.

Looking for an experienced technician. Out of 30 resumes, 2 may have had a wrench in their hand once in their life while handing it to someone who knows how to use it.

1 in 50 have actual experience as a mechanic.

Job market is very rough for young professionals very little hiring going on.

For senior people it's still pretty healthy

Overall, I suspect it's a mediocre job market. A lot depends on what your field is.

Very anecdotal, but my nephew graduated with a bachelors in finance degree about 3 years ago. He was applying all over the place with no luck (I even started a Money Talk thread asking for advice/help). He eventually gave up and either went to a bootcamp or community college for an instrumentation + controls degree/certification. He graduated about a month ago and already has at least one solid offer. FWIW, I graduated with an EE degree in 2015 (I was a late bloomer, 32 years old so that may have hurt me) and it took me about 8 months to finally get an offer.

On a more macro level: a lot of job openings appear to be bullshite. On the other hand, the less-than-stellar employment numbers since Trump took over are suffering because a bunch of foreign born citizens + fed employees are losing jobs. Private sector jobs for US born folks seems to be OK.

Summarized: meh.

quote:

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Recruiters are retarded.

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I honestly think the whole job seeking/unemployment conundrum wouldn't be half as bad if not for AI and recruiting/HR departments being entirely staffed by mediocre white women to fill DEI quotas.

My VP of my IT company's recruiting department is a 29 year old woman with psych degree from Ole Miss. What does she know about network engineering?

Especially for those with liberal arts degrees or other worthless degrees.

Recruiting for big companies has always been awful. They have quotas to hit, and thats all they care about. They screen based on who they think will maybe get an offer and be likely to accept, because their sole goal in life is get the posting closed.

White collar jobs are getting hammered by AI.

Blue collar jobs are in strong demand, especially trades like HVAC/electricians.

5-10 years before humanoid robots start to cut into most blue collar jobs.