What's going on? I don't know.
2023 04 18
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I've now had multiple people at multiple staffing agencies tell me this is the slowest year they've ever seen. Whatever people think the job market is like right now, it isn't. These jobs employers complain they can't fill, I think it's all a load of bullshit. Here's my own experience, and a few notes.
- Since November of 2020 I have sent out over 370 applications, including direct company applications, through staffing agencies, through job sites, and even "cold calling". Outside of a couple of temp things, I don't even get responses. In all that time I've had less than 20 potentials contact me.
- In one week I applied for four different jobs through a staffing agency, and within a few days every single one of them was yanked back by the employers.
- In another week I applied for at least half a dozen data entry jobs, and every single one of them turned out just to be clickbait for filling out online surveys.
- Re the above. I deleted my LinkedIn account ages ago because the only things showing up for me were yet more ads for filling out surveys.
- The Wall Street Journal recently posted an article discussing, amongst other things, ghost ads. These are ads employers do put up themselves, but they aren't actually hiring. Several reasons are given: that they're pretending to hire to mollify overworked current staff, they're using it as a threat to keep current staff in line, it's a ready pool to quick hire just in case someone does quit, and it makes it look like the company is growing.
- Large employers, like grocery chains, are cutting hours for current staff.
- One employer I did have an interview with failed to call me back after the interview had to be postponed due to weather.
- And just yesterday I was supposed to have a phone interview but the employer not only never bothered to call me at all, they didn't respond to my message asking what was going on.
That last one makes me want to puck in the mouth any employer who says they can't find staff.
It's not just me, either. I see a growing number of people talk about their work struggles, applying for jobs in triple digits, and getting nowhere. We're all applying for anything and everything, work below our trained and education skillsets, low wage jobs, part-time jobs, jobs in industries where we have no experience. Nothing's coming. This is happening across the board, in almost every industry. This problem is compounded for people with disabilities like myself, where our choices for work that's doable for us are limited even further.
Are we unskilled? No.
Are we untrainable? No.
Are we lazy? No.
Are we reaching too high? No.
What's going on? I don't know.