The latest job report confirms what many job seekers have been feeling: The market really is that bad.
For those who have been applying to thousands of jobs or slogging through grueling interview rounds only to get passed over, the numbers aren’t likely surprising.
“Things have ebbed and flowed,” Stephanie O’Neill, a job seeker based in Los Angeles who has been on the job hunt for 10 months, told Business Insider. “A couple months ago, it seemed like it was picking up, but it appears to be slowing down again.”
The July jobs report revealed that 73,000 jobs were added in July, less than the expected 106,000. The unemployment rate also increased to 4.2%, a slight increase from 4.1% in June.
Another standout detail from the report was the “larger than normal” revisions to May and June’s job growth — meaning the earlier months were worse than previously thought.
Job growth was hotter a couple of years ago when there was a lot more churn during the Great Resignation. The job market has slowed down in recent years, adding to job seekers’ struggles.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed to Business Insider that its commissioner was terminated on Friday following criticism from President Donald Trump who said the data was a “major mistake” and “The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP.'”
A skills mismatch
Laura Ullrich, the director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told BI that the revisions “reinforced” her thinking over the last few months that the labor market is softening “considerably.”
“We have a quite lopsided jobs market in terms of the jobs that are available and the skills that people have for work,” Ullrich said.
Ullrich pointed to the healthcare and social assistance sector as an example. While the sector has been adding many jobs, many of those positions require specialized skill sets, education, or training.
That disconnect is something 49-year-old Damon Duncan has experienced since 2021, when he was laid off from a sales engineering role. He said he’s been “underemployed” since, or doing jobs that don’t fit his skill set. Duncan’s now working in a cold-calling sales role with colleagues who graduated from college last year, he said.
“This has been a continuous battle for almost four years,” Duncan, who’s applied to thousands of roles, told BI.
O’Neill said she applied to around 512 positions and landed about 20 interviews, mostly from referrals. Despite working in tech for over two decades, she said she’s been considering alternative, non-corporate career paths like teaching.
Job seeker struggles didn’t start this summer
While the latest data validates how job seekers have been feeling, for many, it’s been a challenging market for a while.
Job openings have slowed from over 12 million in March 2022 to a much cooler 7.4 million as of June. Quits have also slowed from its March 2022 peak during the Great Resignation as people are changing jobs less in a job market with fewer hires.
Joseph Leemon, a job seeker based in Michigan, said he’s been searching for a job for nearly three years. He’s applied to around 2,000 roles and he’s only had four interview requests.
“I’m beginning to think that something is really amiss,” Leemon told Business Insider. “Because I am not one that is trying to apply for CEO, C-suite type jobs for hundreds of thousand dollars. I am looking for mostly customer support, operations.”
Another job seeker, Paul Lambert, was recently laid off from an IT support managerial role. In his two months on the job market, he said he’s applied to about 100 jobs since and has only had three interviews.
“It’s definitely been not easy to even be seen in this market,” Lambert told Business Insider.
Despite the challenges, Lambert said his job hunt so far isn’t drastically different than what he experienced after being laid off in 2023. Lambert said he had to take a low-paying job about four months into his job search at the time to take care of his family. He said it took over a year to find a job that matched what he was looking for.
Lambert said he feels like once the tariff uncertainty fades, the market will adjust. However, he said he also feels concerned about companies pausing on hiring new employees once Q4 approaches.
“That’s my big concern,” Lambert said. “Am I going to be able to land employment before Q4 when budgets have been spent and a lot of people really aren’t hiring?”
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