Poll: Nearly Half Of Americans Lack Confidence In Job Market
A new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll reveals that nearly half of Americans are not confident in their ability to find a new, well-paying job.
According to AP, 47% of adults polled said they’re either “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a new job if they wanted to. This is a 10% increase from when AP-NORC last asked the question in October 2023. Much of the uncertainty has come from the Trump administration’s nonsensical handling of the economy. The Trump administration’s tariff policy resulted in higher costs for almost all material goods.
The administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown is also having a negative effect on the workforce, particularly in the agriculture industry. With a shrinking workforce and higher costs due to tariffs, it’s no wonder 54% of adults polled listed groceries as a major financial stressor.
Job growth has significantly slowed while layoffs have hit their highest level since COVID, with the numbers not far off from the Great Recession. While media mergers and tech layoffs have contributed to the high rate of layoffs, it’s Trump himself who’s responsible for the bulk of the layoffs this year. The federal government has laid off 292,294 people as of this writing, with Trump looking to use the government shutdown as an excuse to fire even more federal workers.
I understand the lack of confidence in the job market. In my 20s, I was able to gradually gain better and better employment opportunities. Out of college, I needed a roommate, but my first post-college job paid enough for me to make rent, pay my bills, and have enough left over to buy the occasional video game. As they went on, I was able to eventually find better jobs that paid more, to the point I was able to afford rent and bills on my own while still having money for the occasional video game. My methodology of “work hard, do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t be a jerk,” seemed like a fairly effective way to navigate the job market.
Heck, it’s why you’re reading something I wrote right now (always gotta show my appreciation to NewsOne’s Managing Editor Monique Judge for looking out for me.)
That said, I didn’t predict that in my 30s I’d have to move back home, work two jobs, and potentially be priced out of health insurance after being one of the thousands of people who have been laid off in the post-pandemic era. The fact that I’ve had a harder time finding a full-time gig with benefits after over a decade of experience in the workforce, compared to when I first entered the job market fresh out of college, doesn’t exactly scream “we’re living in a healthy economy.” I can’t tell you how many of my friends are having similar experiences across the nation.
Compounding the economic factors that have led to the lack of confidence in the job market are the rise of scam and ghost job postings on popular job sites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and LinkedIn.
NBC News reports that more and more scammers are posting job openings that look indistinguishable from regular postings. The scammers will often use the names of well-known companies, believable titles, and pay ranges to convince people to apply. The goal of the scammers is to get applicants to send sensitive data, such as their social security number or a bank account number for direct deposit.
“These fakes look so real and so legitimate, it’s almost impossible for would-be job seekers to tell the difference,” Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, told NBC News. The Federal Trade Commission found that job scams have increased by 19% from 2024 and have cost Americans a combined $300 million, with the average victim losing $2,000 from the scams.
If you’re not getting scammed, then there’s a strong chance that the job you applied for doesn’t actually exist. Entrepreneur reports that an analysis of online job postings revealed one in four are “ghost jobs.” Ghost jobs are when a company posts a job they aren’t seriously hiring for.
Sometimes you get outright rejected for the position, other times you’ll interview several times for a job, get told they found someone else for the position, only for the job opening to be reposted the next day on LinkedIn. Totally not speaking from personal experience on that last part.
If a job opening isn’t trying to scam you out of money, there’s a good chance the company that posted it isn’t trying to pay you either. For the few real job openings out there, applicants are facing an intense level of competition, with AI programs and algorithms making it harder to stand out from the crowd.
Considering that this year, GDP growth was driven almost exclusively by AI data centers, and that AI’s growth is looking more and more like a bubble, one can’t help but feel like this stretch of economic uncertainty is going to get worse before it gets better.
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