The Hiring Lie. Why NO ONE is Getting a Job

The U. S. job market is circling the drain - and people know it. When the New York Fed asked consumers in December 2025 about their chances of finding a job in the next three months should they lose their current job, … they said just 43%. That’s the lowest in 12 years. And it’s not just talk. Job openings in the U. S. dropped by 386,000, down to 6. 54 million - the lowest since September 2020, when the Covid pandemic hit hard. But these numbers don’t actually tell what’s wrong. Hi, Josh here and on today’s episode of The Infographics Show, we’re going to reveal why it’s so hard to find a job right now. Chapter One: Tariffs One of the biggest economic shocks of 2025 came when the U. S slapped a wide range of tariffs on both rivals and allies. The aim was to boost domestic production and reduce trade deficits. It didn’t work. Tariffs are essentially a tax on imports - and in this case, the U. S. paid the price. Small businesses felt the pinch, and slower hiring quickly became one of the biggest casualties. The unemployment rate climbed over 0. 4 percentage points over the course of 2025 to 4. 4%. But there’s a deeper problem here - one that could hit far harder than anyone expected. Tariffs aren’t all that unusual. They’re one of the most common economic tools in the world, used by every major power. Sure, they can shake things up in the short term - but over time, the economy usually finds its balance and stabilizes. The problem with these more recent US tariffs is that they’re anything but stable. The tariff policy has been shifting constantly in recent years. The latest projections hit lower-income Americans the hardest, pushing the average federal tax rate for the bottom 20% up by 1. 9 percentage points - more than wealthier households. In response to uncertainty, small businesses tend to avoid taking risks, and economic experts across the board think this is a factor in why it’s so hard to find a job these days. Sean Snaith, economist and director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting, said, “There’s no compelling reason to be out there hiring en masse. That is a rational response when you’re dealing with this kind of uncertainty. ” Adding to this, Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said, “Companies are seeing higher prices, depressing profitability… they’re hesitant because tariffs make a lot of investments that have been profitable, unprofitable. ” And often, new hires - who need weeks or months of training before they can truly contribute - end up feeling like just another risky investment. Few people are likely to be feeling the sting of the tariffs on their employment prospects quite as much as the graduating class of 2025 - about 2,000,000 students. Back in fall 2024, employers were optimistic, saying they planned to hire 7. 3% more graduates than the year before. But by 2025, that hope had almost vanished, dropping to just 0. 6%. And it’s just getting worse. The cruel irony is that the tariffs were supposed to help the American manufacturing industry - but those jobs were some of the hardest hit. Prices for key raw materials shot up, forcing factories to cut back and scale down their workforces instead. But tariffs aren’t the only economic buzzword standing between you and a job right now. Chapter 2: Inflation For the last 12 months, inflation in the US has floated between 2. 3% and around 3%. But those seemingly small numbers hide the real cost - hurting the average American household’s wallet and forcing small businesses to rethink hiring altogether. According to the payment processor ADP, American businesses with fewer than 50 members of staff collectively shed 120,000 positions in November of 2025 alone. When costs rise, it often makes more sense for businesses to have employees wear multiple hats rather than hiring anyone new. One small business owner said, “In a normal year we’d hire 10 to 15, and this year we’re closer to 4 or 5. We’re definitely seeing more thoughtful spending. ” Rising costs often force businesses to cut hours, leaving employees - many juggling multiple jobs - competing for the hours that are left. And while small businesses are being bled by inflation, large businesses have been slashing their own workforces. And it’s all because of their own actions during the pandemic. Back in 2020, tech and tech-adjacent companies went on a hiring spree, worried about running out of skilled labor and losing their edge. Now, those bloated workforces are drowning these mega-companies in expenses - and they’re scrambling to shift the cost elsewhere. So, what happens when the hiring boom turns into a cost crisis? In 2025, Amazon cut around 14,000 jobs - and announced another 16,000 in January 2026, trimming roughly a tenth of its corporate workforce. Pinterest is slashing 15% of its staff. And UPS, after already cutting nearly 50,000 jobs in 2025, signaled another 30,000 are on the way. There’s nothing unique about these companies, they all just seem to be reflecting wider, macroeconomic trends for slimmed-down workforces. Needless to say, this doesn’t make it seem like major companies will be going on hiring sprees anytime soon. Tariffs and inflation are major forces tearing through today’s hiring market. But sharp-eyed

observers have noticed something missing from the conversation - a looming shadow that could have an even bigger impact on your job prospects than either of them. Chapter 3: AI We mentioned earlier that 2025 is when things started getting remarkably bad for the post-pandemic era. The government first reported 584,000 new jobs for 2025, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics later revised the total to only 181,000, showing the year’s hiring was far weaker than initially reported. Compare that to the 2 two million jobs added in 2024. It's no coincidence that this started getting so bad just as AI truly began proliferating into every corner of culture. Remember Pinterest’s 15% staff reduction? That’s another round of cuts explicitly tied to AI, with the company stating in a filing that it’s “prioritizing AI-powered products and capabilities. ” If you’ve been wondering why Pinterest feels noticeably worse lately, that might explain part of it. And it’s not alone. Other major tech and communications giants, like Verizon, are making similar moves. Just months after Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts in November 2025, CEO Dan Schulman said, “If you say to your employees there’s not going to be any job disruption, I think you lose all credibility. All of them get it that there’s going to be… a year from now, it’s going to be radically different. Machines can do most anything we do better than we can do it. ” Just months after the company announced 13,000 job cuts Goldman Sachs have taken to calling this new form of economic weirdness “jobless growth”. AI developments have allowed companies to increase shareholder value while cutting their workforces. It results in the macro trend of economic growth and unemployment at the same time. Sachs have been pretty consistent doomsayers with just how disruptive the AI boom could be for jobseekers. They project it could eliminate 5,000 to 10,000 jobs every single month - potentially rising to 20,000 per month by the end of 2026. If they’re right, 6 to 7% of all jobs could ultimately disappear because of AI. And they’re not the only ones ringing the alarm bells. Assistant professor at University College Dublin, Constantin Burgi, said that AI and the jobs lost because of it might represent a fundamental economic restructuring. What does that mean? In his own words, “It can be a couple of months… it can also years. If the jobs are really lost due to outsourcing or AI, then unless we find… we still need those people and replacing them didn't work, then those jobs are gone. ” It’s a terrifying thought. If companies believe they can make more money while paying fewer people, history suggests they’ll keep doing it - but the idea that this trend can continue indefinitely is highly questionable. Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at Indeed, said, “Having a very low-hire, low-fire, low-quits environment in a period of economic growth can only last so long. ” But is that true, or is it more false hope? If the AI Bubble bursts, as many have predicted, it’s likely to completely reshuffle the circumstances. But since the U. S. economy is so deeply tied to that bubble, any burst could trigger ripple effects in the job market - exactly what those effects will be is still uncertain. Tariffs, inflation, and AI form a brutal trifecta for jobseekers right now. But there’s another huge factor - and it hits much closer to home. Chapter 4: Actually Getting Hired Can Be A Nightmare Does any of this feel familiar? An entry-level job that requires three to five years of experience to actually apply for. The endless rounds of interviews and try-outs, knowing that at any stage you could still be cut from the roster. Everything seems fine - then suddenly you’re ghosted, or get an email saying hundreds of highly qualified candidates applied for the same role. The fact is, even when you find a position that’s open today, actually getting the job can feel like an insurmountable task. Because of all the factors discussed in the previous chapters, the competition for jobs has never been higher. And now, there are AI job-applying services that will find open postings and even auto-generate cover letters. Most of these applications are low quality - but they still add to the slush pile, making it far less likely your resume ever reaches the desk of a hiring manager. With 80 to over 100 active applications, even getting a chance to hear back can be tough. Some applicants describe the process as feeling like a full-time job most of the time. Studies have shown that between 2023 and 2024, the number of applications for the average job posting have increased by 44%, while the number of interviews in response stayed the same. And the real reasons behind this are even more hidden… and far more troubling. There’s a phenomenon that some call “Ghost Jobs” - a strange trend that some researchers first noticed back in 2018. One in five jobs didn’t actually result in a hire. And this actually got worse over time, with 4 in 10 companies in 2024 reporting posting fake or inactive job listings, and giving all job searchers false hope. Why are the doing this? Geoffrey Scott, senior content manager and hiring manager at Resume Genius, said, “Ghost jobs are actually not scams. They’re from real companies

but they are… not actually hiring for that role at this moment in time. They might be interested in hiring for that role in the future, or maybe they were hiring for it, but due to budget cuts, those roles were closed or put on hold. ” Whether ghost jobs are an innocent mistake, an investment in the future, or just a way to look successful, they’re another dead end - giving desperate job seekers false hope. And it creates macro problems, too, because ghost jobs make it harder for government bodies to effectively gather data on the labor market. But there’s still plenty of data that will shock you. In 2025, according to the Labor Department, 1. 7 million of the overall 7 million unemployed people in the US had been actively searching for a job for over 6 months. The loss of entry-level jobs, combined with ever-higher experience requirements, is closing doors for more and more people - especially those who can’t somehow slip into a timeless pocket dimension to get extra work done. In some cases, only 30% of graduating classes are able to get jobs in the industry that they trained in. In September 2025, the rates of unemployment for recent college grads reached a depressing 9. 7%. Nich Tremper, senior economic analyst at Gusto, has said, “Folks are kind of just sitting still. They’re not looking for new roles, they’re not leaving their current roles. Without those new jobs available, it’s hard for an entry-level employee to get their foot in the door and start their career. ” With fewer and fewer jobs being created thanks to cost-cutting and AI, the biggest hope for a new position opening is someone quitting. But because the job market is such a cold fish right now, when someone has a job, they tend to hold onto it. Fewer people are quitting than ever, valuing job security in a chaotic world. And unless your position is being cut from a large company, you’re also less likely to be fired - most small businesses don’t want to risk hiring a lesser employee or mounting costs in the rehiring process. These four umbrellas cover most of the horrors that make the modern American job market so difficult to navigate. So the question is… will things get better? If you’re an extreme optimist, you might hope that after initial frustrations, tariffs will spark a boom in U. S. manufacturing jobs and bring an end to outsourcing. But if companies can save money and boost profits for executives and shareholders, they will - and the imagined Apple Pie America of the 1950s isn’t coming back. Now check out “Most Epic Ways People Quit Their Jobs - Funny True Stories”, or watch this instead!