More than half of employed Americans say that it would be very hard to find the job they want if they looked today. 70% of Americans say the current job search is harder than the last time they looked. They’re right. That’s according to a December 2024 Pew Research Center report, and data from the recruiting and staffing agency Aerotek. Forbes also called the hiring process unbearable. What could be called the White Collar Recession is a worrisome trend for HR.

The job market these days has become alarmingly competitive, and the prospect of applying is similarly disheartening. It all begs the question: with unemployment rates at a historic low, what is really going on and why is it currently so hard for white-collar workers to find work?

To say that the job market in 2025 is competitive is an understatement. To anyone looking at a job-seeking platform such as LinkedIn, Indeed and Glassdoor these days, applying for a job can feel prohibitive. A quick look at these sites reveals that one job posting after another boasts the words “10 hours ago. Over 100 applicants,” or various combinations of numbers thereof.

To add to the strenuous process, job descriptions often read as a confused jumble. Just look at this one, quoted by the tech and entrepreneurship columnist Joe Procopio: “a self-starting, team-player who has vision, is strategic, but is not afraid of the execution. Someone who can drive innovation while ensuring alignment with business goals and outcomes. Someone with demonstrated expertise in the technology, strong understanding of the business, and a passion for mentorship and leadership of cross-functional teams to encourage competitive differentiation.” Procopio, in his sometimes hilarious yet seriously worrying article for Inc., Applicants Tracking Systems Are Crushing Workers’ Dreams of Getting Hired, aptly describes that job description as a “word salad.”

That particular type of job post is hardly a rare instance, as any cursory look at other job-hunting platforms will confirm. Confusing expectations add one more layer to the laborious, tedious, and all-too-often deflating task of searching for a job in 2025.

The problematic situation for applicants may also challenge the way HR teams approach their work. In a now infamous episode recounted in the International Business Times in the fall of 2024, close to an entire HR team was fired after their own manager’s resume was rejected. The fiasco highlighted the maddeningly flawed automated resume screening software the HR team had been using, and their own lack of, well, human involvement. Chances are, you will never look at your rejection letter in the same way again.

It is important to look at some reasons behind that labor landscape, as they may reveal some strategies for HR in addressing how they can hire top talent. Is it because of AI? Mandatory hiring postings? Applicant tracking systems? The economy? All the above? Or something else entirely? Whatever the answer, the reality of looking for a job in the first quarter of 2025 is sobering for applicants, and it doesn’t bode well for the way HR has approached hiring, either.

With the invasion of AI, ATS and other tech additions to the workplace in the last two years hiding monumental shifts under simple acronyms, tech is squarely behind some shifts in job hunting outcomes. AI is now used for everything from writing copy to creating art and every business corner in between, or so it seems as company after company tries to hop on the AI train.

Applicants can write a cover letter using AI, but HR can screen them out in return. That is because AI reinforces the unescapable trend of relying on ATS to streamline the process of working through hundreds of resumes and cover letters landing on HR desks. The result for applicants is often the feeling of a “resume black hole.” Nobody is learning about your achievements and weighing them to see if you have the potential to turn into a value-adding team member: an algorithm is. It’s like SEO on steroids, but only to bury you, not elevate you.

As powerful as tech is in creating barriers to getting talent recognized by the right people in HR, it is not the only reason landing a job is so hard. Mandatory hiring laws also add to the challenge. These laws require that companies open jobs to all applicants, internal and external, even when there is an obviously preferred internal candidate within the organization. These postings are meant to ensure a fair process. And even though these mandatory hiring postings laws do not significantly skew the hiring numbers, particularly in times of intense job search stress, they can and will make things harder for applicants. That’s because getting a rejection letter a day after applying for a position, or sometimes even within minutes, is not good for morale. And staying positive when you are looking for a job is not just good practice, it can determine whether you come out of that long-awaited interview having made the right impression.

After the tech slam, another reason it is so hard to find a job right now may well be the economy. Yes, you read that right: the economy. Even if the U.S. economy as a whole is sound and unemployment rates are low (4.1% nationally, down from 14.8% in 2020), the economic growth is overwhelmingly driven by three sectors: healthcare, the government, and the hospitality sector. If you are not looking in these areas, your chances are already slimmer to land a job reasonably fast. Adding to this lukewarm market are the ongoing and far-reaching consequences of the Great Resignation of 2021.

COVID-induced mass resignations, coupled with Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) and free flowing money in the tech sectors especially, led to a scramble to keep talent and an accompanying and dramatic boost in salaries. But those trends soon led to a swing in the opposite direction with the threat of inflation and fears of recession rising. Another dramatic shift in the economic landscape, reinforced by interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, was on the way.

That shift was precipitated by massive layoffs in the tech sector in 2022. Layoffs.fyi tracks tech sector trends and reports that over 550,000 people lost their jobs in the tech sector in 2022, in what could be called the Great Termination. Job seekers in all sectors are living in its wake today, and many of these are HR professionals, who were hit hard by the layoffs.

Finally, there is the political landscape to contend with. The uncertainty of an election year and its aftermath make for an uncertain economic future, job hunting landscape, and as a result, HR landscape. The political factor is undoubtedly a part of the difficult equation facing job seekers and HR professionals, even if its exact impact is harder to measure, in part because it is still very new.

On the upside, and as reported in an article on Executive Network in January, the consensus among CEOs is that economic conditions and potential for growth are good for 2025. That, in turn, is good news for job seekers, no matter how bleak the future may appear right now.

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