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Job seekers giving up: Labor force participation falls to lowest in 50 years
- MilnerRoute 3mo agoHeadline cropped. It's the lowest participation rate "outside the Covid era". Original headline: "Job seekers giving up: Labor force participation rate falls to lowest in 50 years, outside of the Covid era"
- stvltvs 3mo agoIn other words, the job market is as bad as during a global pandemic, on this particular metric.
- theodric 3mo agoAnd I'm not going back, either. Reckon I can slowly liquidate assets for as long as I have left to live. To hell with all this shit, my farm is enough.
- sph 3mo agoI’m doing the same, and currently in the process of buying said farm.
- woah 3mo agoMan rebels against capitalist system by living off of proceeds of ownership shares of capitalist system
- evdubs 3mo agoLaborer rebels against capitalist system by directly enjoying the fruits of his own labor.
- mothballed 3mo agoThe amount you can capture by directly enjoying it is crazy. You get double taxed on your labor. Once when you earn it, another when you spend it, and then the people you pay get taxed yet again on that! Plus their regulatory costs of licensing, insurance, property taxes, compliance, the cut of the shareholders/owners. If you just do it yourself... there is no one to tax or take anything off the top. It often ends up you double your "income" from your work or better.
- mc32 3mo agoWell, things don’t just appear from thin air. Someone has to work. Foraging isn’t much of an option in non tropical regions.
- stanleykm 3mo agook but systems that are more favorable to workers are possible
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- fundad 3mo agoMan didn't say capitalist system. If anything, he's rebelling against what looks more like a centrally-planned economy than capitalism.
- FridgeSeal 3mo agoWhat kind of silly take is this? “You deserve to starve instead!!” - is this really the position you want to argue?
- theodric 3mo agoIf you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
- SlightlyLeftPad 3mo agoBut you must pay tribute in the form of thousands of dollars in property taxes. Your first born child may also be acceptable.
- theodric 3mo ago€98/yr Not everywhere is America, fellow hacker.
- amatecha 3mo agoWhoa nice, that's nuts. Curious what country if you don't mind sharing! No worries if not
- CalRobert 3mo agoNo idea where they are but when I had a very cheap house in Ireland the property taxes were only a bit over €100 per year.
- SlightlyLeftPad 3mo agoTo be fair, we were talking about Capitalism. There are few places more capitalistic than America currently. But wow, 98€ is about how much it takes for me to take my family out to lunch at a fast food restaurant.
- 8note 3mo agochina being the obvious example? the US seems much more speculation and leverage based, rather than capital being used by private owners to apply labour to to make useful goods
- mothballed 3mo agoAmerica has $0 property taxes in unincorporated Alaska, and possibly a few other places. The rates are determined locally. I pay very little but we also have no public roads and basically no fire or police -- you can pretty much pick what property tax rate you want if you're a little bit mobile.
- crossbody 3mo agoSounds more like people retire somewhat early - for 25-54yo labor force participation near all time high: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 And here is one for 55+yo: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11324230 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11324230 All is fine
- arealaccount 3mo ago> However, in June the biggest plunge came from what is defined as “prime age” workers, or those between the ages of 25 and 54. That rate fell 0.6 percentage point to 83.3%, its lowest since December 2023. It's great how two sources can tell a completely different story about the same numbers.
- gruez 3mo ago>>its lowest since December 2023. That should already make you skeptical, and after looking at the chart, I'm more on side "all is fine" than the doom narrative the article is pushing.
- jjk166 3mo agoIn other news, June worst full month since May.
- cute_boi 3mo agoAdditionally these number aren't trust worthy. Many time these number don't include full data like NEET and are manipulated so much etc..
- mwwaters 3mo agoThe first FRED link shows how noisy that subgroup is. It’s bounced around with 83-84% during that time. It was 83.8% in March and 83.5% through much of 2024.
- tootie 3mo agoPrime age is meant to filter college kids and retirees which makes sense but it is likely hiding the minor crisis in hiring for college grads. But I agree it's not disastrous just a yellow flag. The 20 year bull market has minted a lot of millionaires amongst the upper middle class and a lot of them are retiring early.
- an0malous 3mo agoThe money printing during COVID screwed everything up. Most of the capital was directly given to banks and businesses, fraudulently in many cases and unnecessarily in most, and everything pooled up into real estate and stocks so anyone who had already owned a large proportion of those became absurdly wealthy in the span of a couple years and everyone else effectively lost 20-30% of their income through inflation. The majority of all money was printed during COVID, no one voted for this to happen, no one bothered to even communicate how it was decided how much money would be printed and who would get it, and no retrospective has ever been done. It’s never been more clear that a small group of the wealthiest investors in the US run the show and the majority of people are wage slaves who had the ladder kicked out above them. Now we’re seeing an administration and elite class that is openly ransacking the country for whatever profits it can extract from a dying empire. I have no idea how this ever gets fixed.
- stanleykm 3mo agoa big war, probably
- Terr_ 3mo ago> The capital was either directly given to businesses, fraudulently and unnecessarily in many cases Especially concerning when a bunch of politicians were in on it, ensuring that the money went out willy-nilly and that $700+ billion in "loans" were turned into a straight up gift from the taxpayers. https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/members-of-congress-ppp-transparency/ https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/cre... https://fortune.com/2020/07/08/ppp-loan-recipients-members-of-congress/ https://fortune.com/2020/07/08/ppp-loan-recipients-members-o...
- gruez 3mo ago>ensuring that the money went out willy-nilly and that $700+ billion in "loans" were turned into a straight up gift from the taxpayers. Wasn't that widely understood during the pandemic? All the coverage I've seen mentioned that the loans for forgivable if certain criteria were met, and nobody was like "yeah it's fine because it's a loan!".
- josefritzishere 3mo agoThe current regime's policies are causing an economic recession.
- fundad 3mo agoIt's deliberate sabotage by an anti-growth movement.
- Mountain_Skies 3mo agoThe current regime and the previous regime both reported extremely low unemployment outside of the pandemic but don't let your partisan bigotry get in the way of facts. You are the reason why the uniparty is able to do this, as you will always be willingly blind to it as long as it has the right color coating on it. You are personally at fault.
- Loughla 3mo agoI mean, the current party in power is making out in the open moves to profit directly from tanking the federal government. What's the centrist view in this one? A little robber baroning as a treat?
- loeg 3mo agoThere's a lot of real things you can criticize the current admin for, but "recession" isn't one of them.
- TrackerFF 3mo agoToday I read about Accenture Norway taking in 56 summer internship students from over...1600 applicants. Record year, they reported. Previously I imagined only the top-top tier firms could enjoy low single-digit acceptance rate, but here we have Accenture crushing it. Competition must be tough. (But for what I know, could be that AI has made it easier for people to spam everyone with applications)
- 121789 3mo agoIt’s too easy to apply now, the acceptance rate is not really a meaningful number
- ghaff 3mo agoMy guess is that it's simultaneously easy for a lot of companies to do automated filtering and for candidates to do a lot of automated applications in a way that's easier than sending out a bunch of envelopes. Which makes it harder for candidates who don't have either networks or impressive credentials.
- rwmj 3mo agoI wonder if there'd be some value to only taking job applications by post.
- ghaff 3mo agoAn interesting question but arguably a lot of the most qualified applicants will go FU at that point and only the most desperate will put a stamp on an envelope which is probably not what you want. Honestly, it probably comes down to more networking and credentials.
- mattnewton 3mo agoThere are plenty of services to send mail form the internet for a small fee, so this will only discourage the most poor candidates and add friction for the best ones.
- tamimio 3mo agoIt was never AI, it’s not “recession”, it’s not xyz, it’s simply since covid the wealth distribution got worse, further. It’s why you see the very few are with an exponential networth increase while the majority are suffering, at the same time, those who hold that networth are pulling all sort of shenanigans to keep the market alive and far from crashing for as long as possible, but it’s eminent and it will happen soon, the only exception is starting a major war to meat grind all these young men otherwise they will revolt for sure.
- ozgrakkurt 3mo ago> the only exception is starting a major war to meat grind all these young men otherwise they will revolt for sure Or they will start electing people like Trump/Mamdani to shake the system on both sides
- chilldsgn 3mo agoI wish I could quit working. It is hell. Employers DGAF about people, so why should we care about them?
- rwmj 3mo agoSave over 50% of your salary for relatively few years and you can. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
- klipklop 3mo agoTake an hour off at 2-3pm in any major US city and look at how many people are just milling about. Mostly shopping. There are a lot of people in the US that are not working. Pre-2008 retail was quiet in the middle of the day, now it booms. I can’t comment on if this is a good or bad thing, but I am surprised at how many people are causally walking their dog as I am rushing to compete an essential errand and get back to work.
- giobox 3mo agoI think this is going to be a much more common sight in most major western economies - many of them have a rapidly growing aged retired population and a declining young working segment etc. The effects of this change are definitely being felt, good and bad, in many countries already.
- jjulius 3mo agoAsking because I'm genuinely curious myself, how much of this is unemployment vs the fact that so many more people work from home now compared to pre-2008? Many of those that WFH work a more flexible schedule and probably structure their days a lot differently than 20+ years ago.
- zerr 3mo agoYes, remote and part-time. Shopping on Monday afternoons is enjoyable.
- ahnick 3mo agoBeen remote since 2013 and can confirm Monday afternoon shopping is the alpha. ;-)
- stevenwoo 3mo agoI used to encounter maybe one person who did not have a head of gray hair, i.e. obviously retired, in a variety of mid peninsula parks in Silicon Valley on weekdays pre covid during the work day and nowadays I run into a dozen or more in a typical half day outing on a week day and this trend definitely started during pandemic. But I don’t know if it’s unemployment or WFH now.
- kelseyfrog 3mo agoWe live in a capitalist society. This means we prioritize making money via capital rather than through labor. It looks like we just got what we've asked for. I'm not sure what the problem is. If you're playing labor in a capitalist society, you're playing a losing strategy.
- orphereus 3mo agoWhat?
- kelseyfrog 3mo agoHuh?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Alien1Being 3mo agoOur HR department has given up. They are being inundated with thousands of AI slop applications each week. Hiring has devolved to word of mouth recommendations.
- himata4113 3mo agothis!! Networking turned from a suggestion into being the only way of getting hired. I don't need a job, but I've gotten several emails from recommendations and I didn't have any 3 years ago or so, maybe an odd one here and there. I think getting scouted is also one of the better ways of getting hired by having an active github profile with at least one popular open-source project even if it is AI slop.
- GenerWork 3mo agoAs someone who's looking for a job, this is what I fear. How does one distinguish themselves from the thousands of other people who say "Claude, write a cover letter for this company, make no mistakes", and their cover letter has the same tone as every other cover letter?
- punkbit 3mo agoC’mon! So, when HR manages to get real candidates, why do we have to go through 8 stage of interviews that take months? It’s humiliating.
- Alien1Being 3mo agoYou are a compliance candidate, to show that they follow the mandated process. The real candidate has already been recommended by someone trusted on the team and is going through a much shortened version of the same process. "Council staff dubbed the ‘Pink Ops’ allegedly promoted friends, NSW anti-corruption watchdog hears" https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/11/council-staff-pink-ops-allegedly-surveilled-workers-nsw-anti-corruption-watchdog-ntwnfb https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/11/counc...
- aqfamnzc 3mo agoPerhaps the old recommendation of "Deliver a resume in person, shake their hand" that many of us younguns have rolled our eyes at will actually come back?? How else to prove your humanity to the hiring manager?
- paul7986 3mo agoTech WAS such a great career now it's total crap! The hey day of tech jobs when you received tons of prospective jobs offers via Linkedin feels like that's drying up (tho it could be my age which is not listed anywhere on Linkedin). From 2012 up until Spring 2025 each month I'd receive 3 to 6 recruiters offering a new UX Research, Design and or Front End Development job. Not anymore and now these jobs you are now competing with 100s to 1000s for just one job and if you are lucky enough to get an interview you have to go through 5 to 12 interviews LOL. Im laughing even more as i vibe code a project in which my previous personal projects i hired some help like a back-end developer or two. Nope I can do it all myself and save money like so many businesses are and will continue to. Overall I can't imagine the killing all this head count cause blossomed too much and now AI definitely reducing head count futher is a good thing for an economy. An economy where these jobs let you buy nice single family homes in nice areas. For me I havent left the job market but it's a huge joke now for techies and soon will be for a lot workers who use a computer to complete their work tasks. AI agents will be reducing all white collar jobs where only a few will be needed vs. 10 or 20 were needed before.
- pooploop64 3mo agoThe labor shortage crisis has been going for over 200 years now, yet nobody can name a company that has died or otherwise suffered negative consequences as a result of it.
- punkbit 3mo agoImagine spending 6 to 8 hours a day looking for opportunities and nothing for 1, 2 years. What are people supposed to do?
- joquarky 3mo agoBased on this exact scenario after 25 years in the tech industry, here are a few things you can do: Deplete your retirement savings, have daily panic attacks, add roommates, stop eating healthy, give pets away, stop taking medications, downgrade car, find and recycle aluminum, use coupons, go to several grocery stores to capture distinct loss leaders, drive only when necessary, stop volunteering, visit crisis centers, cancel all subscriptions, wear clothes and shoes until they fall apart, learn to do your own plumbing, stop going to meetups unless they have free food, have trouble both waking up and going to sleep, stop reading the news, buy in bulk, check the thrift store first, stop donating at checkout, cut your own hair, have more panic attacks, air dry your clothes, stop playing games, stop exercising, sell off your sentimental items, buy generic products, juggle interest rate deals, ask for discounts on imperfect items, usenet/bittorrent, curse at the "gifted" system, drink only water, look around and in dumpsters, pick up that penny, and make a mental note about which bridges have the best living conditions.
- eudamoniac 3mo agoI just genuinely don't believe this is a thing that happens. Yes if you expect 150k then it is a thing that happens, but... there is always a job somewhere. You can join the military, become a ditch digger, fisherman, whatever.
- motbus3 3mo agoNot exactly on top of it but I had a related conversation the other day. People at my work were talking poor of gen z and how they are bulk of neets and how they are lame and etc. There is always some cringe in different generations apart, but even being older, I can empathise with them. You have zero forecast to buy a home for yourself, to buy a car, to even pay for a university. Whatever they want to do, they will be sucked dry, even if it is a video game. The f our generation is doing. We are being evil towards the elderly and the young. We blame the rich, the game, the system. All of them we power of our utmost selfishness, transfering the guilty for someone like we couldn't do anything about it.
- saulpw 3mo agoI agree and am open to ideas about what to do about it!
- recursivegirth 3mo agoWell in the U.S. you can start by participating in civic engagement and in your local community. Civic engagement across the U.S. is at historic lows. We are giving up social society for digital screens these days.
- justonepost2 3mo agoWe’re all neets in the near future lol
- Alien1Being 3mo agoAI has made experience less valuable. Seeing a lot of age "bias" * in recent job cuts and comments by CFOs. * Which may be rational, if unfair, if experience counts for less with the advent of the LLM coder.
- kristianp 3mo agoEverything outside of the AI data centre build-out is not growing. And the hyperscalers are having to cut costs to help pay for those datacentres full of GPUs.
- wseqyrku 3mo agoWhat happened 50 years ago?
- silexia 3mo agoAs an employer, the endless government red tape and regulations make me far more hesitant to hire people.