The Job Market Upturn Will Take Everyone by Surprise It’s going to be… awkward. And also fun.
The following contribution is from INC.com and the author is Joe Procopio who is an entrepreneur, technologist, and innovator who has had multiple failures and multiple exits. He was the Chief Product Officer at AI pioneer Automated Insights, which was acquired by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners in 2015. In 2013, Joe sold his marketplace startup, ExitEvent, to Capitol Broadcasting. Joe has worked as a Chief Product Officer for several venture-backed startups and as an advisor for dozens more.
I have some good news about the job market. And some bad news.
The good news is that this perennially frozen and zombified market is finally starting to thaw. Both survey data and anecdotal evidence point to a hiring uptick in the near future.
But let me tell you something about the thaw
I spent my youth frozen in upstate New York. And every year around this time, we would have a similar thaw of all the ice and snow that had accumulated over the previous four, five, or twelve months.
Everyone loved that thaw, but because the snow had sat there so long, it had accumulated into a gray mass of grime and dirt. And when the snow melted, that grime and dirt was left to cover every surface.
This founder of a health food company would rather go broad rather than niche
The bad news is that, likewise, when the frozen labor market thaws, the entire system will be covered in a dirty film.
Metaphorically.
I’ve spent a good part of the last 12 months uncovering the growing problems affecting hiring, especially in tech, for others and for myself. So I’ll celebrate the thaw, but before we all start packing our gloves, earmuffs, and moon boots away in the attic, here’s what will surprise a lot of people who aren’t ready to reap the rewards.
It’s not an early spring for job seekers
This hasn’t been a tight labor market like all the others. It’s been exacerbated by a breakdown in a hiring process that has been automated and AI-infused into a chaos of noise with no signal. That breakdown happened over the course of a decade, not just in the last year or two.
Job seekers are cornered, but recruiters and hiring managers are down there, too
And in my view, it’s not just that the application process has been technologized to death, it’s that the entire concept of “the future of work” has undergone a major shift while the labor market went around in circles. There are a lot of underlying issues, but these four in particular are going to take people by surprise, mostly on the hiring company side.
Replacing AI’s substitutes
Okay, AI, you’ve had your fun. I hope you enjoyed your moment in the spotlight. Now stop freaking out so we can get back in there and start cleaning up the mess.
Look, I’m not a Luddite. I was one of the originators of generative AI and I see the value in the tools. I still get excited thinking about what the future holds for lightning-fast cloud computing and automation science.
But recently, I’ve inadvertently become something of an AI philosopher, warning against chasing the mirage of math-based business.
I mean, that’s what cryptocurrency was: «Dude, what if the whole system was just math and numbers and that’s how you bought stuff, stuff that’s also just math and numbers?»
My anger is, and always has been, directed at how quickly both the owner and the customer of the AI promise jumped into AI-based automation at the expense of humanity. It wasn’t enough to try, we had to tinker with it until we broke it.
Those chickens are on their way home
I warned everyone about this six months ago, because the same phenomenon has happened over and over again when some new overhyped, poorly advertised shortcut is sold as an obvious path to a fear-of-missing-out future.
The cost of cleaning it up is going to be ten times what it would have cost to conservatively integrate AI, especially in the tech industry where we should know better. And no one is going to want those cleaning jobs. At least not the people who can do them. And certainly not at a reasonable price. Because…
Inflation and Price Shock
If we thought labor got more expensive in 2022, imagine a similar job search market after three solid years of hyperinflation.
This actually scares me because it’s another unintended consequence of Covid bailouts that no one cared about because everyone was snatching money out of the air like a kid in a Chuck E. Cheese ticket tornado booth.
Now, to be fair, I’m hearing this secondhand, so don’t take my word for it, but I’m told that good developers don’t get out of bed for less than $300K (half a million on the West Coast). Those numbers would have shocked me before I had to pay $15 for a quality meal.
I’m going to scale up. Don’t judge me.
And when you combine this problem with the problem above, finding experienced people willing to dig into and fix the billions (?) of lines of code we asked ChatGPT to write, well, they’ll probably ask ChatGPT to fix it. And the snowball, now even dirtier and dirtier, rolls downhill.
That broken hiring process didn’t magically fix itself.
And then, ha!, companies have to find the people to come back to work for them.
You know how we modified those automated job application tracking systems in a way that created an exponentially larger haystack full of needles that now only automation can find?
Imagine fewer needles. A lot fewer needles.
Good luck finding them, AI.
Needles are angry
Late last year I talked a bit about the tech worker revolution. It was a fun couple of columns that no one took seriously except the tech workers themselves. For about five minutes, I was Nerd Zapata.
But, to repeat, this has not been a run-of-the-mill employers’ market. It’s one that has been characterized by companies saying out loud what they say quietly: that they’re doing well, that they have plenty of money in the bank, but that they’re laying off a large portion of their workforce to “be more efficient.”
It’s a moment in the history of work that has given rise to unironic CEO quotes like “I’m of the opinion that AI can already do all the jobs we humans do.”
Yes, the shareholders heard you. So did the humans who received termination letters.
It’s going to be… awkward.
But also fun.
Seriously, I can’t wait for the big thaw, dirt or no dirt, and I’ll be following along and telling you what I see, so please follow me by joining my email list.
Tech hiring is terrible these days. What happened?
The following contribution is from UX Planet which is a one-stop resource for all things user experience. The author is Jon Upshaw who writes about productivity, culture, design, entrepreneurship, and life in general.
The failure of a once-rich real-time job market
The tech industry is finally cooling off. It may pick up again, but don’t count on it: AI could replace it before it does.
And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, companies are offshoring operations again while reporting record profits.
Upskilling: that’s always a better option… right?
Not quite, unless you’re okay with the idea that employers are just loading you up with the costs of training and time while they expect you to meet their ever-expanding list of qualifications.
It’s a collective race to the bottom, and unless you started at the top, you’ll always be at risk of being laid off again during the next cycle.
The nature of corporate technology
It’s a sad state of affairs for white-collar workers. Hiring trends point to increased use of AI in job postings and the hiring process.
Recruiters tend to disappear for no reason, and now “ghost jobs” – vacancies that aren’t actually vacancies – account for almost 50% of all online postings.
We’re becoming an increasingly digital society, and much of our activity consists of interacting with each other over the internet.
That doesn’t mean companies are sitting back and not noticing this trend – they wanted a piece of the pie and got in on the action. The reality is that we simply haven’t seen this much online interaction in human history.
The flip side of this is that we’re not prepared for what’s coming – a greater need for direct social interaction amid an artificial demand for digital interaction.
Here’s an example from my personal life.
The other day, I went to a job fair (because like many of you, I was also laid off and have been dealing with job searching). After speaking with a few hiring reps, I was told to «expect a phone call and expect to hear back from them» soon.
The result? No response. I never heard back from any of them.
I was disappointed in their lack of communication, or so I thought. What I didn’t realize at the time, though, is that I fell victim to a common misconception about job searching, and it’s one that I think all job seekers are starting to fall victim to.
The first was that I should never expect representatives to call me back as promised. It wasn’t obvious to me at the time, but more than one person wanted the position I was seeking.
So, I would have to find their specific office number and call them without the expectation that they would ever call me back.
This is hard to understand in today’s job market for a number of reasons, many of which have to do with the increased demand for online interaction that eliminates any desire for social communication.
Everyone Expects You to Do Everything Online
Whether in retail or even food service, it seems like every business wants you to «apply online» these days.
This type of forced web work is due to the increased use of job boards to find candidates, even if their practices are lazy and unethical. Many of these sites were once havens for job openings, but have since become fake job ads and poor content management tactics designed to make you think they are helping you.
On another occasion, I signed up for a job site and, thinking I was applying for a job, I actually signed up for a spam newsletter.
Job postings are becoming synonymous with time-wasting scams
Companies have no interest in meeting the demands of a changing labour market; their only obligation is to their shareholders and instilling in their employees a sense of fear – the fear of being replaced.
Hiring practices, both online and offline, have truly worsened.
Will things ever go back to the way they were?
Things are unlikely to go back to the way they were in 2020, the era that many would consider the golden age of recruitment.
This is because the nature of events during that time was characteristic of a “black swan event” – a situation that is already unlikely to occur, but occurred to an even greater extent.
Before COVID, there hadn’t been a pandemic since 1918, to give you some perspective, and this one wasn’t even managed well, with all the incentives to get the economy back to its pre-COVID state.
What we’re seeing is a trend in the direction it was always supposed to go
Profits are what matters most, and the employee was meant to feel the stress of the working world as the balance was put back in order. There was never going to be a revolution, just temporary relief.
What we can do, as employees, job seekers, and career enthusiasts, is look ahead and make better decisions with future prospects in mind
It’s never too late to start that entrepreneurial venture you’ve been thinking about, and a career change may be the smartest decision you can make if it means greater long-term stability (I’m aware, though, that those with families will face a significant setback in making these kinds of decisions).
We are all part of a system, one that moves slowly and is filled with bureaucracy
And so, just like me, when faced with this bureaucracy, people are left with only one option: create their own path.
I am still struggling to find a second job right now and despite all my efforts, I am not even getting work in food service or retail.
With this job shortage and high cost of living, I think we may be entering a recession similar to the one that occurred in 2008.
Cheer up, everyone, it’s going to be a bumpy ride for a while.
Still no job in 2025? It’s not the market, it’s you.
The following contribution is from the Medium portal which is a place for human stories and ideas. Here, anyone can share knowledge and wisdom with the world, without the need to create a mailing list or have followers. The Internet is noisy and chaotic; Medium is quiet, but full of information. It’s simple, beautiful, collaborative, and helps you find the right readers for what you have to say.
And the author is Maulana Saputra
In 2025, the job market has undoubtedly transformed, presenting both challenges and opportunities. While external factors such as economic changes and technological advancements play a major role, it is essential to introspect and assess how personal actions and mindsets influence employment prospects.
There are many hints as to what the job market will look like in 2025, and I think it’s really the best time to roll up your sleeves and seriously look, because there are plenty of REAL jobs and BIG opportunities to come this year.
Here’s the rundown:
– Tech funding is picking up: VCs are primed to invest again as the «tech winter» fades.
– Networking is key: With talent saturation, employers are relying on close networks and referrals. Attend events and meet people!
– Skills matter more than ever: Employers are looking for the best skills to meet their changing needs.
The first point is about to be addressed in another article, the second point I’ve talked about non-stop in my previous article. So, let’s focus on point number 3: skills for successful employment in 2025.
Rambling, rambling, rambling…
Disclaimer: I’m not currently in a leadership position, I’m not a manager, so if you’re looking for an executive summary from me and straight answers, you know I’m not going to give it to you that easily.
I’m a writer, designer, and mentor on dozens of occasions: so you can be sure that I will make you infer the answer from my articles. That’s my style, accept it.
I know I can be annoying, but once you understand it, you understand it.
Skill 1: Business Acumen
I don’t want this article to be a copy of Debbie’s (it wouldn’t be), but I would also like to emphasize the importance of having business knowledge in any career one has.
Cost-value ratio is a fundamental aspect that every professional must understand. Your value as a designer isn’t optimizing user flow and delivering a great experience, your value comes when your work significantly increases revenue and is an MVP for completing company OKRs.
If you can’t work to make a corporate impact, you won’t make it.
To this day, I still see posts on Reddit and LinkedIn where designers lament about emotionally struggling with feature factory cultures and «being at the mercy» of product managers and developers.
I still have designers asking me why their managers are fighting with them about improving the UX for profitable legacy products.
Ask yourself this: Does improving the UX and then spending hundreds
