The U.S. unemployment rate in 2025 averaged approximately 4.3% to 4.4% for most of the year, showing a slight increase from 2024 levels. The jobless rate peaked at 4.6% in November 2025, which was the highest since September 2021, before settling to 4.4% in December.
Again, the federal numbers describe difficulty, not hell. People are getting hired.
I see the unemployment stats and they just don’t align with any of my lived experience nor that of anyone I know personally.
If I go on LinkedIn, every job listing says “over 100 people clicked apply”. I’ve done ~60 applications through various places and heard back from only 1, which proceeded to ghost me. Any of my frends that have found one did ~500, and not even at a livable wage so they’re still living with their parents. Every employer says their inbox gets so filled with applicants that they admit they have to resort to some poor heuristic (like applying in the first hour or having a ton of connections on LinkedIn). I’ve heard employers of service jobs are getting tons of overqualified candidates as runoff. I’ve shown my resume to people I know with multiple decades of experience in the field I want to work in and they tell my my resume is good. Of those that employ, they don’t have a position for me to fill but tell me if they did they’d hire me.
Is there a way on bls.gov to search unemployment by field, education, years of experience, etc.? I suspect it’d be K-shaped, with newlygrads getting the shit end of the stick.
I’m not saying the numbers are perfect, but your experience not lining up does not invalidate the data. These stats often are highly dependent on zip codes, you’ll end up with highly grouped cohorts.
People are getting rehired from layoffs. It’s not great, but not hell.
I don’t mean to say the data is invalid, but you’re using the data to imply this experience and others like it are invalid. Maybe you don’t mean to do that but that’s what it sounds like.
Your point about zip codes though doesn’t really make sense to me for a few reasons.
Secondly, a little over half of the positions I’m applying for are remote ones across the country, so they’d have to be discriminating on my zip for some reason, including the ones whom I never told where I live. The one employer that briefly got back to me was a local one just a county over for what that’s worth.
Thirdly, I only share a zip code with one of my friends, and he’s in the ‘has a job and lives with his parents’ camp; his job is also utterly unrelated to what he studied in university (though to be fair it’s in a field with historically poor employment).
From what I’ve seen, some people are getting jobs after getting layed off. The problem is that now I, with <1 year of experience, am now competing with others who have 3-5 for the same position. No company in this economy is going to choose me outside of a gamble.
The federal numbers only include people actively seeking work. As such, they have a huge blindspot for those million(s) who were unsuccessful and have stopped searching entirely.
And there were go, bitching about the numbers, over likely a half point or two. No alternative number to describe this hell scape, just ignoring it. 👏👏👏👏👏👏
The U.S. unemployment rate in 2025 averaged approximately 4.3% to 4.4% for most of the year, showing a slight increase from 2024 levels. The jobless rate peaked at 4.6% in November 2025, which was the highest since September 2021, before settling to 4.4% in December.
Again, the federal numbers describe difficulty, not hell. People are getting hired.
I see the unemployment stats and they just don’t align with any of my lived experience nor that of anyone I know personally.
If I go on LinkedIn, every job listing says “over 100 people clicked apply”. I’ve done ~60 applications through various places and heard back from only 1, which proceeded to ghost me. Any of my frends that have found one did ~500, and not even at a livable wage so they’re still living with their parents. Every employer says their inbox gets so filled with applicants that they admit they have to resort to some poor heuristic (like applying in the first hour or having a ton of connections on LinkedIn). I’ve heard employers of service jobs are getting tons of overqualified candidates as runoff. I’ve shown my resume to people I know with multiple decades of experience in the field I want to work in and they tell my my resume is good. Of those that employ, they don’t have a position for me to fill but tell me if they did they’d hire me.
Is there a way on bls.gov to search unemployment by field, education, years of experience, etc.? I suspect it’d be K-shaped, with newlygrads getting the shit end of the stick.
I’m not saying the numbers are perfect, but your experience not lining up does not invalidate the data. These stats often are highly dependent on zip codes, you’ll end up with highly grouped cohorts.
People are getting rehired from layoffs. It’s not great, but not hell.
I don’t mean to say the data is invalid, but you’re using the data to imply this experience and others like it are invalid. Maybe you don’t mean to do that but that’s what it sounds like.
Your point about zip codes though doesn’t really make sense to me for a few reasons.
Firstly, from the data that i can find, in my state the unemployment rates are only a little worse than the national average, in the “not great, but not hell” range you describe (report).
Secondly, a little over half of the positions I’m applying for are remote ones across the country, so they’d have to be discriminating on my zip for some reason, including the ones whom I never told where I live. The one employer that briefly got back to me was a local one just a county over for what that’s worth.
Thirdly, I only share a zip code with one of my friends, and he’s in the ‘has a job and lives with his parents’ camp; his job is also utterly unrelated to what he studied in university (though to be fair it’s in a field with historically poor employment).
From what I’ve seen, some people are getting jobs after getting layed off. The problem is that now I, with <1 year of experience, am now competing with others who have 3-5 for the same position. No company in this economy is going to choose me outside of a gamble.
The federal numbers only include people actively seeking work. As such, they have a huge blindspot for those million(s) who were unsuccessful and have stopped searching entirely.
And there were go, bitching about the numbers, over likely a half point or two. No alternative number to describe this hell scape, just ignoring it. 👏👏👏👏👏👏
We can pull numbers out of our ass all day long. My point is that the federal rate doesnt accurately depict reality which is your entire thesis.
Which do? What numbers out of entirely out of line with reality. What credible source do you provide as an alternative?
I’m not pulling anything out of my ass. I’m presenting a commonly accepted first party measurement.
You are just bitching while providing no credible source to your bitching about inaccurate measurement while providing no alternative?
🙄🖕