How the Job Market Fell Into a Deep Freeze

Ryan Knutson (0:06)

Right now, unemployment is low, only around 4%, and the country added 165,000 jobs last month, beating expectations. In other words, the US is pretty much near full employment.

SPEAKER_2 (0:20)

The number of people filing for first-time unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level since 1969 last week.

Ryan Knutson (0:27)

But talk to someone looking for work, and you'll hear a different story.

SPEAKER_3 (0:31)

After applying for 324 jobs, getting nine interviews and zero job offers, I'm convinced that I'm just destined to be homeless.

SPEAKER_4 (0:40)

And every single company that I have interviewed with has ghosted me.

SPEAKER_5 (0:45)

You call, they don't answer the phone, you send emails, they're not responding to emails, you go up there.

Ryan Knutson (0:49)

Our colleague Lindsay Ellis has been talking to people on the hunt for a job.

Lindsay Ellis (0:54)

I kept encountering people looking for work, who just kept hitting walls. And it felt incongruous almost with the jobs reports every month that had a low unemployment rate and jobs being created month after month.

Ryan Knutson (1:11)

Is there a headline right now that describes the job market?

Lindsay Ellis (1:16)

Frozen is sort of the real word that sums this up.

Ryan Knutson (1:20)

It's the ice cube economy?

Lindsay Ellis (1:22)

I like that. People have jobs. A lot of people have jobs, and they're staying in those jobs. And I mean, I think this feeling of reluctance to make a move makes it more difficult for people who don't have work to break in.

I mean, the people who graduate from college, grad school, or the people who are hit by layoffs, or incentivized resignations. I mean, there are people entering the job market, and there aren't a lot of empty seats to sit down at.

Ryan Knutson (2:02)

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Friday, November 13th.

Coming up on the show, how the job market fell into a deep freeze.

SPEAKER_7 (2:31)

This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude.

In business, a wrong answer can cost you more than a slow one. That's why nine Fortune 10 companies now run on Claude for the work they want to get right. Safety and accuracy are not just line items for Anthropic. That's their whole mission. See how Claude can support your business at claude.ai/thejournal.

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Ryan Knutson (3:36)

As part of her work covering the labor market, Lindsay Ellis made it her mission to talk to job seekers in all 50 states.

Lindsay Ellis (3:45)

I wanted to really figure out, how do I understand the nuance of this, of what's going on, of what it really takes to find a job these days, and how the systems that connect people to work are failing or succeeding. And so I kind of arbitrarily set a goal for myself last year, I'm going to talk to someone looking for work in every state.

Ryan Knutson (4:05)

Lindsay spoke with a hundred job seekers across the country and across a range of industries. How are people describing to you what it feels like to be job hunting right now?

Lindsay Ellis (4:14)

Oh, it's miserable. I mean, people just feel locked out. People have to jump through all sorts of hoops from assessments to one-way video interviews, but it's like you're talking to an avatar, and then you never hear whether you get the job, don't get the job, if they ever filled the position.

It's a lonely, demoralizing, isolating experience because there's just this lack of human contact, and they feel quite alone.

Ryan Knutson (4:44)

Nearly two million people have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more, a figure that's among the highest it's been in a decade.

Lindsay Ellis (4:51)

I've talked to many people who bagged groceries because they couldn't find other work. I talked to a military spouse in Alabama who was confronting ageism and trying to convince employers to hire her as someone over 60

I talked to a woman in Maine who has been a technical writer for many years and that work just totally dried up because all of her companies were basically turning to Claude.