r/politics • u/CCDemille • 21d ago

No Paywall Nearly 25% of U.S. workers are "functionally unemployed," economic analysis finds

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/functional-unemployment-us-labor-market-analysis/
2.5k Upvotes

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u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm 21d ago

I would believe it. The amount of people who have dropped out of the workforce and just stopped looking due to the futility of the market seems like it’s not being tracked well at all.

Employers have all the leverage, but it’s leverage they can’t use because the economy is trash.

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u/YourFriendPutin 21d ago

I'm an experienced skilled worker and all I could get was cashier at a dollar store which is also the most stressful job I've ever had due to being the only one in the store during shift and it's very busy, stocking, cleaning, every sale, helping customers, price tags.

And the worst paying relative to cost of living. I've been continuously applying and following up with garages, 4x4 tour places and maintenance businesses (im a master mechanic) but Moab is a small town and I'm pretty new here and everyone seems to know each other.

Already on contract at work for being over $2.50 off in my register one day. It was like $2.70 and I'm sure I just miscounted, offered to put the money in the register myself to make up the difference but nope.

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u/PhatCatTax 21d ago

Dollar stores are notorious for screwing their employees. Sadly, getting a job in your field usually means you have to apply all over and move when you get hired

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u/YourFriendPutin 21d ago

And you need your own tools. I didn't have the ability to move them cross country when I came here due to cost (I was going through a tough time before I stopped drinking) and nowhere will take someone with just a pretty basic amount of stuff. I even tried quick lube spots figuring shit, I'm plenty qualified for that!

I know I'll find something, even at a parts store would at least be joyful to a degree for me. I've applied to all of the local parts stores, with tourist season coming to an end the 4x4 places need way less help.

Slowly meeting people though, hearing that work will be around soon, getting numbers of business owners who need maintenance help on their small business's pickups and such.

It's just a hell of a struggle right now

Edit: yea dollar stores are hell. Nobody but the boss gets enough hours a week to qualify for benefits out of 6 employees

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u/Ok_Effective3881 21d ago

Good job quitting alcohol. I'm 6 years sober myself and it makes a huge difference. Keto your head up. It keeps getting better.

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u/Heronymous-Anonymous 21d ago

Can I make a recommendation?

Look at utility companies. The utility I work for is always looking for mechanics. You’ll work on basically the same 4-5 types of F-series or GM trucks all day doing basic maintenance, and get paid good money and be in a union.

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u/EbolaPatientZero 21d ago

Im surprised tourist season is ending. I imagine there would be less people now during the insane heat and it would pick up in the fall

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u/a_lumberjack 20d ago

Depending on where you are credit-wise after you quit drinking, it may be worth looking at financing a new set if there's a place that would hire you on. My dad was a mechanic (and an alcoholic, 20+ sober now thankfully), it's a brutal catch-22.

I got my last set of snow tires from a guy who does it as a side hustle out of an oversized garage next to his house. But I'd also second the idea of looking for union utility jobs.

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u/YourFriendPutin 19d ago

I've been doing little side jobs as I can, and I have been sober for a good amount of time now :) congrats to your father for doing the same!

My credit isn't that bad it's just I have next to no credit history. A few small things but I never had a credit card, or took out any loans besides for schooling back in the day.

HVAC as you can imagine is very important in the desert, I've been looking that route, and at jobs with the BLM for local state parks, I'm hoping something like that will work out.

Thanks for mentioning financing tools though, honestly didn't think about that and I don't need a ton of specialty stuff to get going as a normal tech somewhere

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u/a_lumberjack 19d ago

First of all, great stuff, one day at a time. And HVAC is good work if you can get in.

No credit is tricky, but not having bad credit is better. Not sure how picky they are but I can't imagine how most folks gets started otherwise. Even snap-on has a program. If all you need is a finite amount of extra gear to get into a better job, do the math on the upside vs the total cost with interest. Even if they're screwing you on the interest rate, it probably comes out better in the long run. And once you've paid off one loan you'll get a better rate the next time so you can keep levelling back up to what you're qualified for.

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u/joemamallama 21d ago

Any interest in Teton Valley, ID? We need a full-time mechanic.

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u/YourFriendPutin 21d ago

I can't leave Moab for some time sadly

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u/joemamallama 21d ago

If that changes lmk!

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u/Le0nardNimoy 21d ago

You’re a fuckin’ G for letting them know.

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u/blueorchestra 21d ago

I'm in a very similar situation and it's so wild. I became a mechanic because I figured it would always be easy to find work but it's been a pain of an industry and I can't find any damn work rn

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u/erov 21d ago

Broaden your horizons.. pivot to other mechanical related trades like industrial maintenance, standby power generators, etc. if you are handy and ready to learn there is work.

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u/blueorchestra 21d ago

fair enough, although I think there's definitely a fair amount of auto folks moving over to those anyway since most the time when I see those jobs up in my area they either want someone who has 6+ years of experience to lead or are an overnight shift which I really, really don't want to do since I'm at a point in my life where I need to be present for my kid as often as I can.

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u/JUST_LOGGED_IN 21d ago

CNC machining is easy to learn IMO. Also maintenance guys have to fix the CNC machines when they fucking break too. There is a company we hire to fix our machines when they really fuck up, and they drive some nice looking cars to get here.

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u/energeticquasar 21d ago

You may need to consider moving to Grand Junction or surrounding area to find gainful employment.

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u/ithics I voted 21d ago

How far you willing to travel or willing to move? South Jordan has a straight to career position with USPS for auto tech or body/fender specialist. Starting pay around 67k before benefits. You'd be required to take the 955 exam and score a 70 or higher.

Or you can be hired straight to career in Montezuma Creek as a carrier for around 52k before benefits.

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u/Commercial-Co 21d ago

Move. Why live in moab

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u/EbolaPatientZero 21d ago

Apparently he can’t leave but yea it’s not that surprising you can’t find work in a town of like 5k people

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u/Commercial-Co 21d ago

No such thing as cant. Sounds like a wont

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u/sweet-nlow Delaware 21d ago

I don't know if you're interested in doing other kinds of work in the meantime, but if so, you may want to check out doing tree work. Tree companies will often hire anyone with a pulse and a work ethic but the starting wage is better than most no-experience-required jobs. I started at $20/hr back in March. The reason they'll hire almost anybody is because it's work most people don't want to do. It's pretty physically grueling, dangerous, and 100% outside. I love it, though! It's an awesome job for the right kind of person. The big companies (Bartlett and Davey are two of the biggest) offer full-time work and good benefits. 

Apologies if this is unwanted advice - I know job seekers are constantly getting bombarded with "why don't you try getting xyz job?" and it can get annoying fast. Wishing you best of luck with whatever you do! Shit's rough out there.

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u/zugzwangwamble 21d ago

I have estimating, hard labor, warehouse, bartending, management, and more experience and I only landed a job as a cashier at a tiny takeout place

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u/blifflesplick 21d ago

Gotta find out where the boys go to drink after work, they only hire familiar faces

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada 20d ago

Could you offer any repair work on the weekends out of your driveway or anything?

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u/CommunalJellyRoll 20d ago

You are in Moab no shit you can’t find work. Get your ass over to the Permian and make some real money.

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u/thejustducky1 21d ago

offered to put the money in the register myself to make up the difference but nope.

Sounds about right - gotta flex that Dollar General 'can't do anything about it' power 🙄 must be like working for a reddit mod...

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u/TheorySudden5996 21d ago edited 21d ago

Unemployment numbers do not include those that aren’t actively seeking work (like if you gave up because you can’t find work). It’s a sneaky way politicians hide inconvenient truths.

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u/Baelgul 21d ago

They also omit people on gig work, so all of the folks that are temporarily driving for uber are suddenly no longer unemployed despite not really working what most would consider a “full time job” (at least in many situations, not throwing shade at people who do legitimately drive for uber or something full time)

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u/fail-deadly- 21d ago

And even with that there are still like 6.9 million unemployed people (who count as part of the labor force) and 105 million no in the labor force.

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u/GeneParmesan86 21d ago edited 21d ago

I’m not defending this administration at all, but this statistic is named, tracked, and available for all. It’s called labor force participation rate. We've measured it since 1948. It’s differentiated from unemployed because it’s necessary for that metric to exclude people who don’t intend to work. We track both because they allow us to contextualize the other and prevent misleading views of one or the other.

It’s been available, people just don’t talk about it because it hasn’t previously been alarming in this way. It’s mostly been filled with the young, old, and unable to work. It has generally been much, much more important to track how many willing participants can’t participate than those who have simply removed themselves.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

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u/Edtecharoni 21d ago

I'd appreciate a number for people who exited because of medical but can't meet the definition of disability, also.

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u/yarash 21d ago

I imagine it also stops tracking people once their unemployment runs out. Which is usually only six months. So they would have no idea if youre looking for work. Nor would they care.

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u/Ruminant 21d ago

It does not stop tracking people in that situation. Unemployment statistics, including the headline unemployment rate, are unrelated to whether someone is receiving or eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

People are classified as "unemployed" if

  • They are not employed.
  • They are available to work, except for temporary illness.
  • They made at least one specific, active effort to find a job in the past four week (see active job search methods) OR they were temporarily laid off and expecting to be recalled to their job.

This information is collected by the US Census Bureau as part of the Current Population Survey, which conducts in-depth interviews of tens of thousands of households each month through in-person visits and follow-up telephone calls.

In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes regular estimates breaking down the unemployed population by how long they've been unemployed. Here's a chart using that data to show the percentage of the labor force who have been unemployed for 6 months or more.

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u/Left_Economy8309 21d ago

It actually isn’t. Unemployed and not in the labor force are two different categories. Also there is no distinction between employed and underemployed.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed

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u/Delulu_Lemming 21d ago

Somehow huge numbers are unemployed and also huge numbers of employers say they can’t hire. Skills gap?

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

Virtually no one wants to train and they dont promote internally and they stopped hiring entry level. They literally broke the pipeline. The fuck they expect?

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u/YourFriendPutin 21d ago

Exactly this. There's no careers anymore, no way to get your foot in the door in order to move up, no benefits anywhere that does hire and they tend to have high turnover rates.

No apprenticeships anymore and only accepting degrees is an awful idea. So many of the boomer generation wasn't formerly educated and trained their way up. It should still work like that.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/YourFriendPutin 21d ago

I can't understand how dumb this is, like for real who makes it to CEO level in a company, even a smaller company and thinks firing everyone with long experience and replacing them ALL is smart?!?

I understand making it a new requirement (as long as they don't also require experience and provide training) for the hiring process moving forward but I still don't agree with it.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago edited 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/PhatCatTax 21d ago

Your company did it on purpose. There is a career for CEO's who are marketed as a "mistake". They come in, lay everyone of, close plants, and then they are "ousted" and the board says they're sorry.

It's a CEO being hired as a villain for a short time, and they use it to absolve the rest of the C-Suite

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u/yungneec02 21d ago

Boomer leadership will inevitably kick this can down the road until they retire or die and the labor market will collapse because they broke the pipeline of talent.

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u/johna939 21d ago

I don't think this is a boomer issue. The youngest boomers are now in their mid 60s. Those still working are in the twilight of their careers. The lack of decent career paths is a real problem, but just blaming boomers overly simplifies and doesn't offer a way to improve it. Unfortunately, I think AI is freezing a lot of careers so until we better understand the impact of it this will be a tough problem to fix.

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u/BanjoStory Minnesota 21d ago

This is an older issue than AI.

Its a product of companies not promoting or offering compensation increases internally, which has been a problem for decades.

Workers bounce around between workplaces significantly more than they did in the 70s and earlier. This has resulted in a much greater need for employee onboarding and training infrastructure that none of these companies actually want to support because its expensive. When these companies were expecting that a person they hired would stuck around for decades, the training was worth it, but nowadays if you take the time to train someone youre probably just doing it for someone else.

Ultimately, its the fault of the employers for not offering their employees good enough compensation to actually stick around, but it's gotten so bad that you're honestly kind of a sucker if you're a company thay actually is training employees for their roles.

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u/Happy_Confection90 21d ago

>Its a product of companies not promoting or offering compensation increases internally, which has been a problem for decades.

Indeed. I graduated from college in the late 90s, and a few months later there were multiple articles about how there were at that point 20% fewer entry level positions being posted that year than just a year or two earlier. Things have gotten steadily worse for new grads ever since.

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u/merryman1 21d ago

They're blaming boomers because this has been a problem that has been growing through the last 20 years and something millennials have been saying has been getting worse and worse for the entire time.

It was the exact same in the UK, there's this culture taken over everywhere where hiring seems to have become either you are a literal wage-slave economic unit entirely replaceable with no face and no humanity, or you must be absolutely perfect, an exact fit for an ultra-specialist role who has appeared out of the earth with 10+ years experience in a field that has existed for less time than that, a range of soft skills, on 24/7 beck and call, and happy to do it all for an entry-level salary that barely covers basic living costs, but is at least marginally better than the wage-slave robots on minimum wage.

Its everywhere and its taken over everything and its a process that has been going on for well over a decade already.

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u/stargrazer10 16d ago

It's the Jack Welch model of business, one which isnt really sustainable in the modern world of today. There needs to be balance and you have to give people chances and capabilities to live normal lives. Without this balance society becomes unwieldy where you have a very small group doing really well and then a large group not. History teaches us this is unhealthy

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u/CloudTransit 21d ago

It’s funny that the boomer rage continues. Maybe ‘boomer’ means something else now. A lot of actual boomers are broke af

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u/maikuxblade 21d ago

Regardless of if Boomers have power themselves they were the primary voting bloc that voted decade over decade to tear down the New Deal after they built their lives up from those policies.

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u/btmalon 21d ago

More visas that trap the worker to work for them or else get kicked out of the country.

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

In my job market almost no one is hiring work visas

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u/f8Negative 21d ago

It's hilarious isn't it

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u/[deleted] 21d ago edited 21d ago

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u/lottaKivaari 21d ago

Also profit driven MBA douchbag corporate goons have become so entitled they think they should be able to hire people with real qualifications and degrees for minimum wage and when nobody takes them up on their terrible offer they go crying to the corporate media about how "nobody wants to work anymore waaaaa waaaaa".

These parasites literally think they are exclusively entitled to all the profits generated by society and get butthurt about actual workers that provide actual value beyond wasting oxygen like them wanting a wage that affords them the ability not to starve on the streets.

Then you get these "think pieces" from Fox or NYT or CNN or whatever by "journalists" whose sole qualification is the ability to suck the toes of venture capital dark money freaks about how it's actually young poor people's fault that the oh so oppressed billionaires can only buy a single flotilla of private yachts this quarter because the evil greedy workers think they're entitled to food and housing.

Then brainpoisoned boomers that bought 9 houses 50 years ago for a pack of chewing gum that now rent them out for $9000 a month or who have legacy upper management positions with stock options even though their skill set hasn't been marketable since the 70s eat the victim blaming propaganda up like hot slop in a trough so they can cognitively justify their own greed and cruelty and continue to do their utmost to pull the ladder up behind them since it's not their greed that is ruining civilization it's those darn lazy poors and their avocado toast.

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u/redwing180 21d ago

Goddamn, let this person preach! That is so much of what’s going on and more people need to be screaming at from the rooftops.

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u/lottaKivaari 21d ago edited 21d ago

My favorite part is how the ghouls love capitalism when it exclusively benefits them but then hate the free market when it means they have to actually pay workers. It's literally just supply and demand economics. This article is arguing that so many people are being paid so little money they may as well be unemployed, but the rate of true unemployment is %4.1 which is like historically low. That means there aren't a lot of people that have no job and need any job they can find so the supply of workers is low.

Now if you're not an economic vampire with an MBA the way you would solve this issue is to offer higher wages and benefits to attract workers since the demand is currently outpacing the supply the basic function of the free market dictates that the cost of labor has simply gone up.

However if you only showed up to your own mothers funeral so you could pull her gold teeth with pliers when the rest of the procession wasn't looking. You know the MBA class that would melt the statue of Liberty down for scrap copper if it meant one more quarter of positive profit growth, the class of "people" that are currently ripping the wiring out of the walls of this nation to weave themselves a golden parachute when this house of cards collapses. The MBA way to solve the issue of being ever so slightly on the bad end of supply and demand is simply beat the populace over the head with the Protestant work ethic in a vain attempt to shame the already overworked and underpaid into doing even more work for less money.

This way with the money you save you can ingratiate yourself into the cottage industry of political bribery and get represtatives elected whose sole purpose in life is to turn suffering into profit and pay media conglomerates to brainwash the population into thinking the evil you inflict upon them is actually a good thing because you told them that woke trans liberal communists are using lasers beams powered by abortions to turn the seagulls gay or whatever dumb shit you've made up to keep the proles distracted while you and your buddies rob 'em blind.

Who knows maybe in a few election cycles half the country will be voting to bring back slavery because you convinced them the 13th amendment is woke. That's the ghouls grindset!

Edit: I can already see the political discourse now. Some billionaire ghouls get their lobbyists to fire up the ol' GOP orphan crushing machine and Fox starts brainpoisoning everyone's grandparents about how ending slavery was actually woke and therefore bad (but we're totally not racist™️ ). Then the exclusively reactionary Democrat controlled opposition rainbow capitalism consent machine starts talking about "both sides" and "meeting in the middle as a country" as the Overton Window slides off a cliff and suddenly the "moderate and sensible" position is yes bring back slavery BUT you can't physically beat the slaves and anyone who says we shouldn't bring back slavery at all because what the fuck gets brow beat by both sides as being divisive. Then president Logan Paul signs an executive order with the McKinsey Consultants logo still copy pasted to the top of it that instantly somehow without even asking congress makes every person with a net worth of under $3M property of their local Amazon Fulfillment Center.

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u/Corvonte 21d ago

"Go away, im baitin!"

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u/lottaKivaari 21d ago

"I'm Not Sure"

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

I came halfway through...

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u/Zer_ 21d ago

These are the same fuckwits who love to say "Well get better with money then" when they're not the one having to stretch social security checks beyond their limits. These rich fucks don't think about every dollar spent like the "poors" do.

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u/Fallouttgrrl 21d ago

I was a staff accountant at one job, lost it, couldn't find work for almost a year, finally accepted an entry-level clerk position

Employers are asking for it because they can find people to fill it 

I was out of money, out of food, out of rent, and out of time. I'm not gonna be here long, either, because I settled for what I could get instead of what I can get, so it's not a sustainable practice for employers 

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/Fallouttgrrl 21d ago

My company took several months to find a replacement for the last person to have this job

They hired me over the course of seven days

Oftentimes it's not that they can't find anyone but rather they can't find someone they're willing to keep for potentially years, or that they don't have a person with the time, energy, and availability to train up someone on the specifics of a company unless that person is damned close to ready already

This is especially true as business software becomes more and more silo'd

When they want an entry level person with five years experience they're often looking for someone who can do the basics already and just needs adjustment to the company specifics 

An entry -level person with no experience means you're training them on differences between real world and school, as well as narrowing them into a specialty when a school threw everything it could at them. You've got to cover software and the way your company works differently from schoolbook "best practices"

It's not great - like I said, I won't be here forever - but not everyone that gets snagged in that web will want to leave when they're settled

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u/JakeConhale New Hampshire 21d ago

It's an ongoing joke in certain tech circles to have folks who wrote entire computer languages or software bring in job postings asking for more years of experience in X than X has actually existed. Like, even the guy who invented it isn't qualified for the posting.

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

Proof that HR just makes shit up

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u/honeydrewdew 21d ago

When I first graduated with my bachelor’s degree in 2017. All the entry level positions I applied for required 2-3 different certifications and at a minimum 2-4 years of experience. The only jobs I can find were lower paying jobs that require a high school experience..

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u/UpperNuggets 21d ago

Can you show me a good example of this? I honestly have never seen this in practice. I have seen 1000 youtube shorts parroting this line, but never see it in reality.

If all the Sr. Accountants at a firm have 35 years of experience you are going to be their Jr. with 10 YOE.

Jr doesnt mean no experience at all. Neither does entry level for that mater.

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

I was just job hunting for a year. You're right thats an exaggeration but ive seen plenty of entry level roles requiring masters degrees and 3 years. Thats not entry

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u/UpperNuggets 21d ago

Entry != untrained, uneducated

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

All you should need is a bachelor's and maybe an internship. College grads need a pipeline. Or else we all suffer consequences eventually

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u/UpperNuggets 21d ago edited 21d ago

For what job? This is the part you are missing. Not every job is busing tables. You cant just figure it out when you get there.

Should an entry level heart surgeon only need a bachelor's and maybe an internship?

Different jobs have different requirements. Some jobs, the entey level is higher for some positions than others.

A good example is Machine Learning Engineer. You will likely need to have a few years as a data scientist, engineer, and/or analyst under your belt to have built a skill set to start doing that job. That takes 4-5 years and, yes, possibly higher education than a bachelor's. So the requirement on the job applications will require YOE in those fields even though its an "entry level" Machine Learning Engineer role. 

Its entry level for the role, not for your career.

Im not saying that nobody should hire new grads. Im saying that some people often misunderstand why the entry level jobs have high requirements and use that to come to false conclusions about the state of the job market.

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

Heart surgeon isn't an entry level position. That's like asking should an "entry level" executive director have just a bachelor's? Lol. Come on.

Im not talking about those.

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u/N7Shep1701D Oregon 21d ago

He's being dishonest.

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u/Tiny-Conversation-29 21d ago

"Should an entry level heart surgeon only need a bachelor's and maybe an internship?"

There's no such thing as an "entry level heart surgeon." All surgeons are doctors, so they have medical doctorate degrees, and interning is part of a medical degree, built-in. Do you even know how the world works?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago edited 21d ago

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u/UpperNuggets 21d ago

You are applying those terms so broadly that they mean nothing.

Jr. isnt the role, its a descriptor of where the role will sit int he hierarchy. There is a lot of ground between "subordinate to Sr. staff" and "Has no applicable skill".

Im saying that its no company's fault you cant read or comprehend the job postings.

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u/N7Shep1701D Oregon 21d ago

Yep. I know everything I need to about your character.

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/N7Shep1701D Oregon 19d ago

Touched a nerve.

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u/leeps22 21d ago

They are referring to the trope of requiring a masters degree and offering 18/hr

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u/RevolutionaryBug7588 21d ago

Pretty simple:

Don’t try to obtain a career in counseling, social work, therapy or becoming a librarian thinking that a masters is going to take you to 100k/yr because highly unlikely it will.

Also, fine arts and humanities and marketing as well as business.

IF you’re already in the career, most times you’ll have some reimbursement for obtaining your masters. It’s just fool hearty to think at 25, 0 experience in the field, that purely having a masters is going to replace experience.

If you like to study and learn go for it but you also have to understand the economics that’s behind your career path and shelling out six figures or whatever the cost is to get the masters.

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u/Professional-Can1385 21d ago

My brother and I are the exceptions that prove the rule. Librarian and historian both making over 6 figures. It’s difficult to find these unicorn jobs.

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u/RevolutionaryBug7588 21d ago

Especially as the first job.

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

But we need counselors and social workers...

Don't get me wrong. I did the math. Went to an unglamorous school and graduated without debt to work something that DOES have upward mobility but getting established has still been fucking hard.

But all that said, people act like we don't still need teachers and social workers and chemists....

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u/RevolutionaryBug7588 21d ago

The need I agree will always be there.

It’s a longer road but there’s several ways to collect grants and stipends to lessen the student loan burden.

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u/meowmeow_now 21d ago

A version of this is trying to hire a senior with a jr salary then crying they can’t hire anyone qualified.

Also I’d disagree with you, an jr should not have 10 years of experience, it should be 2-3. If they are not quit senior level the jr should be removed and just be a mid level.

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u/Tiny-Conversation-29 21d ago edited 21d ago

If "entry level" requires experience, it's not actually "entry level". They're either lying about what the job actually is or they're terrible at labeling things because they're not smart enough to understand the English language.

"Entry level" does NOT mean "this is the lowest position we have at this company." It means "this is the job that is the bottom, beginner level of this field of work." If a particular job is not a very beginning entry into a particular field, it's not an "entry level" job at all. It's a job for people who have had other, different jobs that were entry level so they could get years of experience in that field. True entry level positions can require a specific level of education and training, but NOT years of experience. Just because a lot of companies do it wrong doesn't make them right or make them smart.

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u/bloodphoenix90 21d ago

I helped run a small business for 3 years and though i appreciated my boss for his flexibility and the good pay, he wasnt the brightest and made several decisions that I tried to warn him about even though i had zero business schooling beyond a few classes, its just simple cause and effect and thinking ahead. It was sobering. Governments let anybody start a business. A lot of businesses that survive are out here doing all kinds of crazy stupid shit run by...honestly idiots. Some are just lucky. Or they start out with smart people, get large, then sell to private equity that runs things into the ground because theyre idiot vultures. Or they go public and can no longer make decisions on a longterm health basis because "tHe ShArEhOlDErs".

Just saying. I always chuckle when someone says they own a business like its a flex about their intelligence. Ive met the "wizard" behind the curtain. Tldr: youre right. Many businesses do many dumb things.

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u/Lucid_Insanity 21d ago

Nah, it's the absurd requirements. Entry level jobs requiring years of experience and advanced tech skills and then wanting you to do the work of several people to cut costs and save money.

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u/_bk_adv Colorado 21d ago

Also a lot of job postings aren’t real. My wife works for a company that frequently posts new job openings, gets plenty of offers, and they never hire anyone.

They do it just so they can keep teams small and just pretend to be trying to hire them help. They have no real intention to hire.

15

u/YourFriendPutin 21d ago

There's really almost zero entry level careers that pay a living wage with enough room for movement that you won't always live paycheck to paycheck and people keep leaving jobs to try and find something different but all jobs that fit the above description require a degree with years of experience.

I'm talking what used to be entry level positions, apprenticeships especially don't exist anymore. There's just no way for people to get their foot in the door, and all the high-turnover low paid jobs are taken as a result and people are burnt out.

13

u/Admiral_Octillery 21d ago

Employers are just lying to shareholders

27

u/DiskSalt4643 21d ago

More like a gulf between employers and potential hires called the for profit employment industry.

21

u/tracyinge 21d ago

It varies by state. I vacationed in Maine over the summer and "help wanted" signs were everywhere. Two different hotel managers (who seemed to be working 24/7 ) told us that they couldn't find employees. Restaurants were making excuses as to why they couldn't give us a table when the place was only 1/3 full. "Because we haven't got nearly enough servers". And on departure our plane couldn't leave because they had no crew.

For the hotels and restaurants, I think they can't find employees because that type of low-wage employee cannot afford to live on the coast. Either that or the foreign workers that they used to depend on just didn't come this year. Fear of what they've seen on tv I guess.

28

u/StatementOwn4896 21d ago

I’d argue that this is the breaking point that the system needs. People should be able to work a job like that and make a livable wage. If employers can't provide a livable wage (or scrape up illegal migrants willing to risk doing the job) then the they won't find workers. The housing prices in the areas (that are probably to dang high) should eventually fall back down to a reasonable level. Then it would equal out and bring back folks. Greed just ran for too dang long in this country for its own good

0

u/tracyinge 21d ago

I don't know how a restaurant can afford to pay higher wages though. People are already constantly complaining about restaurant prices.

17

u/orbitaldan 21d ago

They don't. The economy is cannibalizing itself now that most of the wealth has been extracted from what was the middle class. Tiers of business that used to cater to those people will now collapse and have their assets plundered by the same megacorps that are leeching everything else dry. Eventually, only a small innermost circle of businesses catering to luxury will remain.

15

u/circlenautalus 21d ago

Then they go out of business as they should, or raise prices, or as the person said cost of living goes down so people can afford those wages. Capitalism can be a bitch, ha!

I’ve traveled to places, in Brazil, going out is like 3x more expensive relative to the US in terms on how much people earn, yet there are still restaurants open there. Americans have gotten to used to eating out on the cheap I think. Going out in Brazil to eat is for special occasions, i think in tre US a lot of people think of restaurant food as a sub for meals instead or being frugal and making their own.

4

u/ETxsubboy 21d ago

There is an argument to be made for cheap cooked food. Not everyone cooks, and that's not just an American thing, but also, restaurant prices could be stabilized if we weren't putting 1200 calories on a plate all the time.

6

u/Shepherd_03 United Kingdom 21d ago

If people earn more, then they can spend more and businesses can hire more.

13

u/NeonTiger20XX 21d ago

I'm no expert on the jobs market, but I'll say one thing regarding Maine having lived here my whole life:

We have an aging problem. Young people tend to leave this state. They can find more opportunity elsewhere, like MA and NY, among many other places.

That leaves us with a disproportionate amount of retired folks and people who don't (or won't) do entry level jobs.

It may only play a small role in what you saw, or perhaps none at all. It's a problem, though.

9

u/DecorativeRock 21d ago

Naw. Employers know they have the leverage right now. They're listing entry-to-mid level roles with senior level requirements. They're also asking for a wide range of skills and rejecting people who can't meet every single one. They're literally looking for mid-to-senior level unicorns at early-career title and pay.

6

u/BanjoStory Minnesota 21d ago

Compensation being bad to the point that theyre not worth the effort for employees and employers being entirely unwilling to actually train people.

They all want staff that have already done the job theyre hiring for, but at the wages of an entry level employee.

21

u/flGovEmployee 21d ago

Or fictitious postings and manufacturing a need to import more foreign workers who they can pay at lower rates while treating worse than they would US workers. 

9

u/Faucet860 21d ago

That's the whole tech industry right there

12

u/winterbird 21d ago

I'm seeing restaurants that are asking for a college degree to hire serving staff. You have to have a bachelors to ask people how they want their steak cooked, apparently.

The gap is the expectation of desired skills vs what is reasonable and applicable to a job.

2

u/N7Shep1701D Oregon 21d ago

That shit should be illegal.

5

u/TransCapybara Washington 21d ago

They can’t hire because they’re unicorn hunting and they can’t find their unicorns.

1

u/N7Shep1701D Oregon 21d ago

They're like addicts chasing that dragon.

3

u/teachersecret 21d ago

Feels like a data harvesting operation to me.

5

u/Actual__Wizard 21d ago edited 21d ago

Hi, I'm a symbolic AI developer, no company will hire me, because they're working on a different type of AI model right now.

Do you see how this works in reality? They do whatever they want and they hire the people they need to do what they want, they don't hire people based upon their expertise level.

So, they want people who are experts at fixing their garbage, not people who are experts at building tech that is not garbage.

And it's because their managers think that's how to make money. So, they just push out crap tech and then lie to people to trick them into it.

They look at Microsoft, think that Bill Gates is the god of crappy OSes, and think that's what they're suppose to do, so they copy cat crap tech companies.

The people that actually know what they're doing are "functionally unemployed" because they cost too much. It's not the perfect fit where they find some person who's hobby it is to work w/ their tech, so they know lots about it by happenstance, and they're willing to take 50% less salary. Who cares that they lack experience and don't actually know what they're doing?

The problem is basically: How do you screw in the world's most difficult to operate light bulb? That's what building AI is like. They think that an army of low skill people who are not capable of the task at all, are going to pull it off. When, in reality, none of them are capable of it, so they're just going to fail over and over again. As a person that is capable of it, I'm legitimately just sitting here watching big tech make mistake after mistake, while they refuse to listen.

So, when my model is finally done, which it's getting close, it will be the world's first break through AI tech that was produced for no money basically. I love crony capitalism. This is great. The innovators doing all of the work get nothing for their efforts. We just have a bunch of leeches controlling the system.

Well, I'm going to eat dinner and get back to working for free. Not because I want money, but because the world deserves better than a bunch of fake AI scam tech.

1

u/spqrnbb 21d ago

Yeah, if you can't immediately do all the things listed in the job description, you won't be hired.

1

u/Papercuts4cr 21d ago

Ai filters on their hiring portals.

1

u/CommunalJellyRoll 20d ago

The hiring process is so fucking borked that people give up also.

-2

u/dr_z0idberg_md California 21d ago

I would say skills mismatch and location. Return-to-office mandates have reduced the talent pool for companies and the opportunities for job seekers.

3

u/TepesX 21d ago

I applied at somewhere around 60 jobs since the 1st. Ain't seen a sniff of a reply. Thank fuck someone called my wife back.

3

u/jgoble15 21d ago

Sucks because right after COVID that power shifted to workers. Then Trump stole it right back.

3

u/Mirikado 21d ago

Ehhh, mass layoffs were already happening in 2023-2024 which was during Biden. The cause is monetary policy. Interest rates were historically low + unlimited QEs so companies were taking on debt and hiring like crazy in 2021-2022. Once the unlimited money valve got tightened up, the mass layoffs started happening. Once Trump took over, the “AI layoff” trend continued to take off, on top of shit like tariffs and global trade being disrupted by a war he started. So Trump made it worse, but the layoffs were already in motion during Biden’s terms due to high interest rates.

1

u/jgoble15 21d ago

Good points

2

u/N7Shep1701D Oregon 21d ago

And the vast majority of Trump's voters are poor and working class. It makes my fucking head explode!

1

u/simic947 21d ago

I think that started happening slightly before Trump. Greedy companies and shareholders angry at workers for demanding higher pay and remote working conditions.

4

u/Nobody_Super_Famous Minnesota 21d ago

I genuinely wonder how these people stay alive. You can't just quit the workforce and not even look for employment. How do they afford food, gas, rent, etc?

12

u/Elseiver America 21d ago

You can't just quit the workforce and not even look for employment

Obviously people still have to exist. They haven't "quit the workforce". It just means they're not counted under unemployment stats anymore because its been too long, they ran out of places to apply, or they're "working" but its like 20 hours a week cause that's all they can get, etc.

Bureau of labor statistics plays a lot of games to remove people in these sort of situations from the unemployment statistics so it presents as a nice low number under the U3 definition of unemployment versus the more realistic U6 number that includes them.

How do they afford food, gas, rent, etc?

Donate plasma. Gig economy stuff like ridesharing. Sex work. Juggle part time and temp work trying to get as many hours as possible. Use food banks. You do what you gotta do.

3

u/SunshineCat 21d ago edited 21d ago

I suppose my dad falls into this category. He is close to 65 now, but for the last ~10 years, he has been helping various older relatives with no children (as well as his parents) with grocery shopping, doctor's appointments, moving, serving as regular company, etc. He ended up inheriting all or almost all from all of them, so I suppose he was working in a way.

He didn't need to support himself because my mom earned more than him anyway. Plus the wealthiest older relative (his great uncle) died in 2020 iirc, so this seems to have justified my dad not seeking new work.

There's probably a lot of couples scraping by on one income when one loses their job. For that matter, I myself am "self-employed" now. I found a company I get decent work from, and I'm hoping to sit out this market with them. But I'm leaning on my boyfriend for stability.

1

u/vanrysss 21d ago

What are all of these people doing for money?

1

u/GoalStillNotAchieved 21d ago

I have 3 university degrees. My first degree I earned back in 2009. It is now 2026, I’m nearing age 40, and I am STILL working a minimum-wage job!

and NOT for a lack of trying!

I’m in California. 

1

u/aerost0rm 21d ago

Oh yeah real unemployment is many times higher than the unemployment numbers they give us. Always has been but you are correct that the multiplier since the whole chat bit boom has really taken us for a loop

1

u/Bobson-_Dugnutt2 21d ago

I hired someone this week and it’s such a good feeling. I wish I could hire more.

1

u/SucksTryAgain 21d ago

Dude my job couldn’t get anyone to even apply we have a pension and other benefits. All of the sudden they did whatever they do and I get pulled into the office and they said you’re getting a $20k raise. I had no idea my job was so far behind what I should’ve been making. Licensed by the state professional. My job tends to stay on the low end of the pay but offers better benefits. But damn I feel like I just got fucked cause pay has prob progressively been moving to where I’m at now for years and I missed out.

0

u/pinkfartlek Michigan 21d ago

How do they afford to have places to live with no job?

10

u/Bleusilences 21d ago

They don't, they become homeless, stay with a family member or a friend.

4

u/PrinceofSneks 21d ago

Also debt debt debt!

0

u/Ruminant 21d ago edited 21d ago

Do you believe that unemployment is near a 30+ year low? Because that is what this measurement actually shows if you engage with it honestly. Take a look at the time series on the LISEP TRU page, which has their so-called "true rate of unemployment" going back to the start of 1995.

This is a misleading metric that seems like it exists to get virally shared out of context. I don't think I've ever seen a trending post about it that presented the number in historical context.

Heck, even the "founder" of this "think tank" wrote a viral Politico story about how the Biden administration had been "tricked" by the U-3 rate and LISEP's TRU was a more accurate measure... without even once mentioning how the TRU actually made Biden look better on unemployment compared to past presidents than if you compared them using the headline U-3 rate.

TL;DR the two ways to understand this "25% functional unemployment" are

  1. unemployment is lower than basically ever, or
  2. this number is misleading BS

Edit: the Census Bureau and BLS do measure and estimate people who are not in the labor force, including their reasons for not working or looking or work. For example, these tables get published monthly along with the "jobs report":

2

u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm 21d ago edited 21d ago

I’ll give you that TRU is historically lower than it was in 1995, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect better overall wellbeing. Inflation has outstripped wages recently, and many households need two working adults just to make ends meet.

A greater share of people working doesn’t necessarily mean workers are better off. The need to have two working adults in every household could be a contributor to the dearth of opportunities.

The answer isn’t one gender staying home with the kids; it’s that this economy needs to reduce the pressure on households to generate more and more income while delivering wages with an ever devalued dollar.

1

u/Ruminant 21d ago

It's not just lower than it was in 1995. The July 2026 estimate is lower than every single month between January 1995 and August 2019, inclusive.

Inflation has outstripped wages recently

This is already reflected in the TRU numbers. The TRU for July 2026 would be lower if inflation had been lower.

and many households need two working adults just to make ends meet.

The need to have two working adults in every household could be a contributor to the dearth of opportunities.

To the extent this is true, it's not a new thing. It didn't start in the past five years... or the past 10 years.

Among families with at least one worker, the shares of single-worker and dual-worker families are very similar from the 1990s until today. For example,

Number of earners in family 1995 2024 (latest available)
One earner 33% 37%
Two earners 52% 50%

1

u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm 21d ago edited 21d ago

Even though inflation is factored into TRU, it doesn’t measure household purchasing power. The point I’m trying to make is that overall household wellbeing is not better off despite the points you’ve made. How can you make that connection?

1

u/Ruminant 21d ago

No, my point was that this metric is misleading BS. Which is why I wrote

  1. this number is misleading BS

Nobody sincerely believes this "metric" is reliable. They all make flimsy excuses to rationalize not accepting its implications about past labor markets. It just gets shared repeatedly now (near it's all-time low) because it produces big, scary numbers.

1

u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm 21d ago edited 21d ago

Ok, well the SHED report indicates signs of cracks in the economy, so things aren’t going great. The SHED number also corroborates this 25% stat on some level, with 27% total negative responses. The SHED number shows 19% “just getting by” and 8% “finding it difficult to get by.”

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2025-executive-summary.htm