- Skeleton Crews. Basically, if one person is doing the work of three people with the same pay why hire more? Who cares if that person is stressed out? Business is still running as usual and will hold out as long as they can. By not hiring more and keeping the headcount low, profit goes up and whoever is in the upper management gets a nice bonus.
- False Hiring and PPP Loans. Ranging from small businesses to large corporations, many have received Payment Protection Program (PPP) Loans that were supposed to be used for payroll and other expenses during the pandemic. However, many of the loans were abused and pocketed by owners and then later forgiven. A condition for these loans to be forgiven is if a company is “actively” trying to hire but cannot fulfill these positions. That's why people are struggling to get interviews as well as seeing jobs being posted over and over again. They had no intention to hire in the first place. Basically, it was a huge money transfer and the top ate well.
- Everyone is hiring. No, they are not. Only retail and fast food positions that barely pay a living wage and high stressed are only hiring is what they mean. Not the comfy white-collar jobs with good benefits cause who would give that up? Even then, these places are running on skeleton crews as well.
- Mass Layoffs. You have now a lot of people including whom have more than 12+ years of experience looking for jobs now. A good chunk of them are willing to take lower-paying jobs because they have no choice but to put food on the table and pay bills. Now the entry-level or junior-level position you are applying for has become more competitive. Employers have the luxury to be picky and want a unicorn to be a yes man, a bootlicker, someone who does not talk back, who is overqualified, and willing to take a pay cut as well. Also, a lot of these companies have a “monkey see monkey do” mentality. Once a couple of companies started doing layoffs, then other companies started doing it only because “it must be the right thing to do right now”
- The Feds actually want unemployment to go up. They want it to go up because the justification is that no job = no money = reduction in savings = lower purchasing power = reduction in inflation. Higher interest rates would lead more people to hold off on purchases they do not need which put less money in circulation and bring down inflation according to the federal government. Also, Powell said it is to “discipline labor” as well. But of course, there isn't a problem with corporations making record profits during high periods of inflation. It is estimated that 70% of inflation came from price gouging in which corporations raised the price more than they needed to and mask it as inflation. Anything but to tax the rich right? I'm sure trickle-down will happen anytime soon.
- Anti- WFH Propaganda. Throughout the pandemic, multiple reports proved that WFH has increased productivity and worker well-being that has not been seen pre-pandemic. WFH was positively received. But all of a sudden Return-to-Office was necessary as WFH wasn't working even though as long you have a computer, desk, and WI-FI, the same work that can be done at the office, can be done better from home in most people's cases. This is later revealed that a lot of bigger players are tied up in real-estate investment of these corporate buildings and that tax revenue around the surrounding areas has decreased as well which the local government does not like. If you WFH, there is no need to buy food on the way to work or buy expensive lunch downtown, and then waste money on gas. However, with the big RTO push, a lot of employees are either resigning or outright refusing because why would you go backward on quality of life? I even was disqualified from an interview for asking about it but it is what it is. Remote work is in hot demand yet employers refuse to acknowledge it.
There's more to why the job market is trash right now of course but this is JMO from all the reports and posts I have been reading. Feel free to add or even counter any of the points I made. Any comments are appreciated