WTF Is Happening To The Job Market

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Gen Z is facing the worst entry-level job market in nearly 40 years, with tech layoffs already up 33% from 2025's historic highs. And while homelessness is officially exceeding levels seen during the Great Recession, recent headlines suggest this is the strongest job market in history, raising the question, when did the job market become completely detached from reality?

[00:00:21]While the job market was once treated as the most important reflection of whether ordinary Americans could build stable lives, afford a home, raise a family, and retire with dignity, today's labor market has increasingly prioritized protecting the interests of those benefiting from the K-shaped economy, resulting in a system where temporary headline job growth, which will inevitably face a third straight year of historic revisions, matters more to the stock market than whether jobs actually provide stable wages, upward mobility, or the ability for younger generations to realistically build a future at all.

[00:00:51]With the former Secretary of Labor, who recently resigned following allegations of using taxpayer funds for personal travel, insisting that despite 2025 seeing the highest level of layoffs without a recession, the labor market was stronger than the data suggests.

[00:01:04]>> Well, this tells us that more people are getting off the sidelines and they're looking for those jobs. And that's the exciting part. So, more people in the workforce looking that unemployment rate might tick up, but I think the exciting part is we're creating those new jobs.

[00:01:18]With this complete disconnect from reality and obvious self-s serving interests, ignoring the fact that the United States is not producing new jobs, at least not of substance, especially as AI, is leading to jobless growth. When looking at every major technological shift in modern history, mass displacement was absolutely a core component. But unlike today's AI revolution, these technological shifts still required immense levels of human labor to scale. The roughly 200,000 handloom weavers, 150,000 skilled textile artisans, and the hundreds of thousands of farmers displaced during the industrial revolution did not face a sudden and direct threat overnight. It was decades of economic transition that was directly complemented by massive demand for factory labor, railroads, steel production, construction, and logistics. The carriage and wagon industry, which employed tens of thousands of skilled workers, was wiped out by over 97% within just 10 to 15 years after the automobile took off, alongside displacement in blacksmiths, friars, and stable hands. However, the growth was so rampant that automobile manufacturers could not hire and retain workers fast enough with Ford alone employing more Americans than Apple, Tesla, Meta, or Nvidia do today. Even the rise of the internet and personal computing displaced typists, secretaries, travel agents, and newspaper journalists. However, many workers were still able to transition those same skills into the rapidly expanding digital economy with studies estimating that the internet created roughly 2 to 2.6 jobs for every one job it eliminated. When we look at today's rapid AI expansion, the fundamental goal is eliminating human labor itself.

[00:02:46]According to Sam Alman, there will eventually be billion dollar companies completely run by one person. And while I don't particularly trust much actually anything of what he has to say, I have yet to hear anyone present a tangible idea for what humans will actually be doing in the workforce. With much of the current investment surrounding AI already centered around reducing labor costs rather than expanding the workforce itself. In 2025, investment into AI surpassed consumer spending as the primary driver of GDP growth. The first time this has ever happened in history with the overwhelming majority of those funds flowing directly into data centers. In Abalene, Texas, OpenAI is currently building the first data center for the multiundred billion dollar Stargate artificial intelligence venture, where OpenAI claimed that the infrastructure would secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world.

[00:03:34]However, as of now, roughly 1500 workers are constructing the first facility, and once completed, the data center is expected to employ only around 100 full-time workers. For reference, a similarlyssized cheese packaging plant that broke ground in Abalene in 2021 was projected to employ roughly 500 people.

[00:03:52]Several industry representatives estimate that a typical 250,000t data center may ultimately require only around 50 workers total, roughly half of which are often contract labor. And even when it comes to the local businesses that would traditionally support large-scale industrial expansion, companies such as Meta have increasingly begun using internal catering services during construction rather than rely on local food vendors. meaning that the estimated $5.3 trillion expected to be poured into data center expansion will ultimately generate little to no meaningful long-term economic benefits for the local communities surrounding them. Imagine if that money went to affordable healthcare, uh, housing, jobs, wages, child care, food. If any of this was actually about helping humans, they'd be doing it. In regards to employment within the job market, AI has simply become a blanket justification to do essentially whatever serves the interest of shareholders with companies such as Amazon using AI restructuring to cut roughly 30,000 workers over the past 2 years while simultaneously hiring 20,866 H-1B workers. So far, AI is the number one stated reason for layoffs, accounting for 26% of all job cuts in April and roughly 16% year-to date, nearly a 3x increase from last year alone. Yet, when researchers from the center for AI safety and scale AI attempted to test how effectively today's AI agents could actually perform real world work to a professionally acceptable standard through the release of the remote labor index, the results showed that even the best performing models built by companies such as Open AI, Anthropic, and Google achieved an automation rate of just 4.17%. with Oxford research suggesting that many so-called AI layoffs are less about actual automation and more about signaling the illusion of technological progress to investors while masking broader economic weakness. However, just because AI is being overstated in the short term does not necessarily mean that large scale displacement isn't still rapidly approaching. MIT researchers using a simulation tool called the iceberg index found that AI can already technically replace 11.7% of the US labor market representing roughly $1.2 2 trillion in wages with current AI related layoffs accounting for just 2.2% of that exposure. Meaning that as corporations continue aggressively restructuring around artificial intelligence while simultaneously navigating rising inflation, tariffs, weakening consumer demand, and growing economic uncertainty, the pressure being placed on the labor market may only continue intensifying long before AI is even fully capable of replacing workers at scale, resulting in a hiring process where applicants are not only having to compete for limited positions in their local area or even globally, but also the potential of mass displacement, artificially placing all power into the hands of employers. years while forcing many applicants to submit hundreds, sometimes thousands of applications for jobs that might not even exist.

[00:06:39]According to an analysis by My Perfect Resume, roughly 30% of all job postings are ghost jobs with over 2.2 million job openings in June of 2025 alone, never resulting in a single hire. where despite approximately 9.3 million Americans working multiple jobs, the highest number ever recorded since ALS started tracking multiple job holders in 1994 with 49% of the workforce being unable to afford the minimal quality of life and over half struggling to afford food. 70% of employers posting fake job listings believe it is morally acceptable, claiming it to lead to a boost in morale, revenue, and productivity, leaving hiring rates to fall to their lowest level since 2013.

[00:07:17]despite this supposedly being the strongest job market in history. And unfortunately, this complete standstill alongside the lack of any forward planning for where all this supposed job growth is even supposed to come from has culminated right as Gen Z is entering the workforce. Despite postings for entry- level jobs in the United States declining by 35% since 2023, 2/3 of all entry-level roles are now being filled by workers with over 7 years of work experience. effectively meaning that not only is Gen Z being completely blocked out from the job market, but there are millennials that are currently being forced to take entry-level pay. In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers found that employed workers today are roughly half as likely to receive a higherp paying outside job offer as they were in the 1980s, despite major wage growth historically occurring when workers changed employers. stating that the quality of available jobs has gotten so bad that workers are increasingly trapped in low-paying positions with limited mobility, highlighting how despite the unemployment rate supposedly sitting near 4.3%, roughly 72% of Americans told Gallup it is still a bad time to find a quality job. Once again reinforcing the reality of an economy increasingly represented only by those benefiting from the K-shaped recovery.

[00:08:29]And even for the small percentage of Gen Z that actually manages to break through and land one of these so-called entry-level roles, what they're met with is not an opportunity for a career, but a job that pays less, offers no real benefits, provides little to no pathway for advancement, and ultimately does nothing to address the issues actually plaguing society. Which is why I'm grateful to be partnered with 80,000 Hours. 80,000 Hours is a nonprofit that aims to help people find careers that contribute to solving the world's most pressing problems. They provide free resources that help break down how your career can influence areas like global health, factory farming, and AI safety alongside a job board built around high impact roles and free one-on-one advising to evaluate career paths and causes. They also recently released an updated version of their book, which is officially available for pre-order, titled 80,000 Hours: How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good, which challenges traditional advice by explaining why following your passion can be misleading, why so-called safe careers are increasingly exposed to automation, why traditional career advice no longer works in the age of AI, and why many of the most critical global problems remain overlooked. So, if you want help building a career that is meaningful, fulfilling, and aligned with solving world problems, check out the link in the description or scan the QR code on screen. Thank you 80,000 hours for partnering with the channel. And while wage growth has now fallen to just 3.9%, meaning wages are merely running parallel with government reported inflation, executives at the S&P 500 firms with the lowest median employee pay still saw compensation increase by an average of nearly 35% over the past 5 years, proving the unfortunate reality that as long as the top 10% of Americans can continue maintaining the majority of consumer purchasing power before we fully discover what our AI reality will become, there is fundamentally no incentive for honest representation or meaningful solutions. to the labor market conditions the majority of Americans actually face. But something that we must understand when it comes to this K-shaped recovery is those on the upper echelon, those actually benefiting from the economy. Let's take somebody like uh Jamie Diamond. So he is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase. If he didn't show up for work, do you think anybody that works inside of a Chase branch would actually have their lives changed whatsoever?

[00:10:39]Is the teller not going to be able to know what to do because Jamie Diamond didn't show up to work?

[00:10:45]Now, maybe if he didn't show up for like a month or three months, well, they'd probably put in a new CEO and after a while things might change, but in the grand scheme of things, the day-to-day operations within within a a physical Chase branch wouldn't change whatsoever.

[00:11:04]Let's take it let's look at it through a political lens. We've already seen what happens when the government shuts down, when the politicians don't show up for work. Now, in the grand scheme of things, none of our lives changed whatsoever because they don't really work anyway. The only thing that actually changed was the fact that our taxpayer funds weren't able to go to the institutions to pay for the workers there, right? But, you know, if a uh a Nebraska senator doesn't show up, nobody's life changes. you probably don't even know who he is anyway.

[00:11:37]The reality is is that if 10% 20 30 40 50% of the people inside of a Chase branch don't show up, that's a massive difference.

[00:11:50]If the secretaries and the assistants and the all the people that are helping the politicians, if they didn't show up, it'd be a bunch of chickens with their head cut off. They wouldn't be able to know what to do. It's like nurses.

[00:12:04]The bottom 90% may not have representation within the economy because the consumer purchasing power has been has dropped so substantially.

[00:12:15]But the reality is in terms of our productivity, in terms of what it is that we actually do for the economy, the weight is on our shoulders.

[00:12:25]So the real question is is well, why are we not protesting?

[00:12:30]Why are we not deciding? Yeah, let's not show up to the branch. Yeah, let's do these massive strikes and these walkouts and all these things. One is is that it's been culturally like removed.

[00:12:45]That isn't really a part of American culture anymore. That's taken decades.

[00:12:50]But I think the bigger thing is is that I personally think that this K-shaped recovery actually started much earlier, but definitely around 2008.

[00:13:00]because there's a lot of people that still have not recovered from that.

[00:13:04]And so what happens when you have such a a a widening gap between wealth and equality is that the discussion continuously serves those in power. It serves those that have the money. CBS and NBC and uh Fox News and all these things talk about how great the stock market's doing or real estate valuations or you know the job market's never been better, right?

[00:13:30]That's insane to see. And the people that are watching that, the people that are benefiting from that, well, they're reaffirmed in what it is that they're experiencing and everybody else does not get a voice.

[00:13:42]And so we don't have the ability to have the conversation because instead of us recognizing, wait, maybe things aren't right. You know, you you go to your parents' place and you haven't been able to get a job and you go for some guidance, maybe you go for some safety or something. You just want to speak with them. And what they recognize is that, well, they're kind of on the tail end of their careers. They're making the most that they've ever made before. Um, their 401ks have never been more uh because the stock market's doing so well. and they're watching Fox News and they see the job market's never been better. And so when you go up and you talk to them, hey, this is really hard.

[00:14:19]I'm having a difficult time. I don't think that this is the way that things should be. All of these things.

[00:14:25]I don't know. Maybe you're kind of lazy.

[00:14:28]And so what you do is you think, well, screw you parents. But deep inside you think maybe it is me.

[00:14:36]What about the 9 million Americans out there that are having to work two jobs that don't even have the opportunity to watch a video like this or to even think about how could I make a change when you have you're having to do nose to the grindstone so you can be able to provide for your family. Part of the the reality is is that when you have some people that are doing well or they're even doing okay, you kind of you look around at everybody else and you think, why don't you just do more? It's not that bad. or yeah, it's always been bad, but it's like, no, there 50% of Americans can't afford food right now. Like, that's a massive issue. Homelessness has it's beating times during the Great Recession. That is awful. If we do not discuss the the impact that the job market is having on a massive amount of people, they become forgotten. And as this K-shaped recovery continues, more of the people that are falling behind on the bottom rungs of the K, they're going to start getting forgotten as well.

[00:15:39]And that's not a world that we want to be in. Right before I started filming this video, I had a uh I had a gentleman email me and he was asking, you know, how do I keep making these videos? He's been unemployed for five months. He sent hundreds of job applications and and he's feeling like he wants to give up. He thinks he needs to start a business, but you know, how do you even begin on that when you got bills to pay?

[00:16:05]And what I just keep coming to is that there were people out there in the world that came home after trying to get a job. They've done hundreds of job applications. Maybe they went to their parents or their grandparents. They went to a place that maybe could have provided some safety. And what was on the TV? The job market has never been better. I'm just trying to say, hey, it isn't your fault. I'm not saying don't take responsibility for the actions to make things better. It does require hard work and sacrifice and discipline and all of these things, but you can't even take those steps if you're taking the burden of decades of decay. Not to mention the fact that we're going through one of the biggest economic transitions probably in the the history of humanity. the industrial revolution will look minuscule compared to what AI will most likely do. And if it doesn't work out, then we're going through a massive economic fallout anyway. So no matter what the the situation is, there is a tremendous amount of pressure. You don't need to be stacking more on top of your shoulders. That's why I show up.

[00:17:09]And if and that's the reason why I continuously show up. And so if I get the opportunity for you to think, man, maybe I do need to have conversations with people, maybe I do need to, yeah, you know, work harder and do these things, but let me do it in in a pursuit of service so that I could be the person that uh turns the largest living generation in millennials to actually have a higher uh higher than a 16% representation in our government, less than baby boomers and Gen X. Maybe I go into the government because I want to see a change happen. Maybe I can be that person and I can boost those numbers up.

[00:17:44]So, we have young people actually thinking about the future. Gen Z, the oldest one's about to be 28. I believe there's one person in our government that's a Gen Z. You want to make a difference. You have interest in the government. Boom. There's an option for you right there.

[00:18:01]Be in service. Don't just do it for self-gratification. Don't just do it for your own self-interest. Let's be the different generation that that that makes the changes that previous generations didn't. And a large a large reason that they a large reason that they didn't was because they just had to grind. They had to work hard. They still had the opportunity to do so. In my opinion, the job market has has I can't really say it's collapsed because you can still get a job, but in my opinion, since 2008 at least, like it's just continuously getting worse. A collapse means that we've hit the bottom and we'll b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b bounce back up. I don't really see that happening. I'm here in Austin. I have I I've born and raised in Austin, so been here for 26 years and basically in the same location. I have never seen more homeless people in my life. And at the same time, I've never seen more Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, uh Aston Martins pass them.

[00:18:59]And I have to say that's not a world that I want to be a part of.

[00:19:04]I do have two resources that I want to provide to you because again I think it's important that we learn from this and we decide what is it that we're going to do in our own life. If you are in need of wanting to have a job, you are wanting to make a change. Truly 80,000 hours is a great opportunity to do so. Free resources, free one-on-one advising. I also have a resource for veterans and military spouses called Major Talent. Major Talent provides resumeé development, interview preparation and feedback, job placement and employer connections, and marketplace opportunities. I actually got in contact with Tim, a former veteran and the founder of Major Talent through the Veterans Day documentary I did on my Patreon. And after talking with him and many of those many of you that are also veterans, one of the biggest things that I recognized was that it's very difficult to transition from the military into civilian life.

[00:19:53]And with that, it's very isolating. And so I really want to you to know that you're not alone. Um I really appreciate that you want to be a part of this community. I did not recognize how big my veteran community was. Um and I really want to try to do everything in my power to be able to show you how much we appreciate your service. I truly do think that Major Talent is a fantastic resource to use. So I've provided uh 80,000 hours as well as major talent in the description and the pin comment. um you know and and and I just think for me what I really just want to show is that I'm going to continuously keep showing up and discussing these things. It is not complaining. It is addressing things that must be addressed because we have to give the people the opportunity to think maybe it's not their fault so that they can start looking forward on how we can be in service. We got to pull up our friends and our neighbors and our brothers and our sisters so we can walk handinand together. But if we just focus on our own path and we look back and we point at them, it's just going to be the same thing. We're just going to repeat the same cycle over and over and over again.

[00:21:02]I really hope that this was able to provide some value to you. Um, if it did, I would greatly appreciate if you liked and uh like the video and subscribed if you haven't already done so. Really trying to build a community on here and um I I I really hope that that I'm able to do that and I'm providing you value as well. Um I'd greatly appreciate if you wanted to be a part of that. Um, beyond that, thank you all so much for your time. Um, I look forward to speaking with you next time.