Since being laid off from her human resources job in the hospitality industry in May, Sashi Cayard has tried it all: walking into businesses to hand over her resume in person, applying to a slew of positions online, venturing outside of her industry, and contacting hiring managers directly.<\/p>\n
Still, nothing. The 26-year-old from Miami even tried appealing to politicians for help.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe job market is so bad that when I went to Washington, D.C., I dropped off copies of my resume to my state representatives and was like, \u2018Hey, can you help me find a job? There are no jobs in your district, and half the postings you see are ghost postings,\u2019\u201d Cayard said in a video posted to TikTok in August. <\/a><\/p>\n She never heard back.<\/p>\n Now, some would say \u2014 finally \u2014 that economic data is catching up to what job seekers like Cayard have known for months about the state of the US job market. The unemployment rate<\/a>, which had been hovering between 4% and 4.2% since May 2024, broke out of that narrow range in August to hit 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021. Revisions to jobs data showed the country actually shed 13,000 positions in June, the first monthly net job loss since December 2020 while adding nearly a million fewer jobs<\/a> than initially reported for the year prior through March 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are currently employed and you\u2019re happy with your employment, you\u2019re probably feeling OK because that layoff rate is still pretty low,\u201d said Allison Shrivastava, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. \u201cBut if you\u2019re trying to get into the labor market or switch jobs, you\u2019re going to be having a really difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n Cayard, who has a bachelor\u2019s degree in hospitality and tourism management and a master\u2019s degree in human resources management, started applying for other roles immediately after losing her last position. She was especially concerned about healthcare: Staying on her employer\u2019s plan through COBRA costs around $800 a month. So far, she\u2019s put in over 500 applications, but she’s only reached the interview stage for two jobs.<\/p>\n So it goes in a no-hire, no-fire job market: The employed are staying at jobs they might otherwise leave rather than face a brutal market, and the unemployed are finding they\u2019re unable to get a foot in the door as companies keep from hiring due to economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n \u201cApplying for jobs is a full-time job,\u201d Cayard said. \u201cPeople ask, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 I\u2019m trying to just keep on keeping on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s reason to be concerned. The share of out-of-work Americans who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks reached 25.7% in August, a level last seen in early 2022 before job openings reached a record high<\/a> amid a red-hot labor market.<\/p>\n Story continues <\/p>\n \u201cJobs aren\u2019t being shed, necessarily \u2014 layoff rates are still pretty low \u2014 but we aren\u2019t adding a lot of jobs to the economy, and people also aren\u2019t quitting their jobs,\u201d Shrivastava said.<\/p>\n Workers are coming off from the highs of an extremely strong post-pandemic job market, making this fall particularly dizzying, Shrivastava noted.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, unemployment is nowhere near where it was during the pandemic, inflation is far below where it was in 2022, and consumer spending remains strong, though that\u2019s being driven by high-income consumers<\/a>, leaving questions on how long these bad feelings may last.<\/p>\n Read more: Jobs, inflation, and the Fed: How they’re all related<\/a><\/p>\n Sentiment about finding a job, meanwhile, is already plummeting. The New York Fed\u2019s measure of workers\u2019 perceived probability of landing a job after losing their current position is at its lowest level, according to <\/a>survey data going back to June 2013<\/a>. The University of Michigan\u2019s survey of consumers, meanwhile, shows the share of respondents expecting higher unemployment in the next 12 months<\/a> is at its highest since the Great Recession.<\/p>\n For those stuck searching for work, the current reality is a roller coaster of applications that seems to lead people off a cliff. Some postings are \u201cghost jobs\u201d that never appear to get filled at all. And some applications are reviewed by AI<\/a>, meaning an hour of tailoring a resume and cover letter may result in a rejection in minutes.<\/p>\n Felicia Enriquez, a 47-year-old in Los Angeles, has been unemployed for about 14 months after unexpectedly losing her job as a paralegal and is consistently looking for work. She\u2019s picked up freelance work as a journalist to keep herself busy, but she\u2019s still six months behind on rent.<\/p>\n While initially looking for work as a paralegal, she\u2019s struggled to find a position because she doesn\u2019t speak Spanish, which she finds is often a requirement in her area. So she broadened her search and recently applied for a position at CVS.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m willing to take anything at this point,\u201d Enriquez said.<\/p>\n Tyler Tiede, a 27-year-old in Rochester, N.Y., is also deep in the job hunt after stepping away from his software engineering position in late November for a personal hiatus. Tiede, who has a physics degree, was casually looking for work right away, but ramped up his search in June.<\/p>\n In the beginning, he was only applying for software engineering positions \u2014 competing with both computer science graduates who can\u2019t find work and recently laid-off tech workers. After applying to hundreds of software engineering roles, he\u2019s started to look for roles as a sales engineer or product engineer and is pivoting to IT and system administrator work. He\u2019s also delivering orders through Uber Eats and DoorDash.<\/p>\n Tiede is lucky to have a support system behind him, including his girlfriend, he said. But being unemployed can challenge \u201cyour opinion of yourself on a day-to-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve tracked, like, my last 100 applications, and as of a couple weeks ago, I think 60% of them just never even replied to me, ever, and then 40% rejected me,\u201d Tiede said. \u201cYou either don\u2019t hear back anything, or they just say, \u2018Oh, we went with someone else.\u2019 You don\u2019t really get real feedback on the reason why.\u201d<\/p>\n Shrivastava said she can understand workers\u2019 frustration with a frozen job market. She recommended that people out of work use this time to upskill and leverage their network where possible.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re probably not going to be as penalized as you would be in a thriving labor market for having gaps in your resume,\u201d Shrivastava said. \u201cPeople are pretty understanding, given that we\u2019re kind of all experiencing the economy together.\u201d<\/p>\n Emma Ockerman<\/a> is a reporter covering the economy and labor for Yahoo Finance. You can reach her at emma.ockerman@yahooinc.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Click here for the latest personal finance news to help you with investing, paying off debt, buying a home, retirement, and more<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n