Disconnect between official job data and people's experience on the job market?

Anonymous
My friends who have young adults just out of college say the market is terrible for their grads.
Anonymous
It's a low fire low hire job market. Which is refreshing for those of us who have been in the churn since 2001, but I can see how that sucks. Companies are reluctant to fire or hire due the recent bout salary inflation.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:My friends who have young adults just out of college say the market is terrible for their grads.


If recent grads aren’t whiny WTH wannabes they’ll find a job. This latest working generation is entitled and lazy.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My friends who have young adults just out of college say the market is terrible for their grads.


If recent grads aren’t whiny WTH wannabes they’ll find a job. This latest working generation is entitled and lazy.


Yawn. Every generation has been called entitled and lazy by a previous generation.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Here in the DC region it's currently difficult to find a long-term position that can pay the mortgage and sustain a family. This is because the federal workforce has suffered from drastic cuts, which has had a domino effect on service jobs to that workforce. Also, housing is quite expensive here (not as expensive has San Fran or NYC, but still).

The market data includes a lot of low-paying manual jobs that cannot replace a lost $150K fed position.



But still housing market is strong
Anonymous
I think if you’re in the non-profit/government fields, it’s not good. Basically anything touching federal money that isn’t defense or homeland security. But a lot of industries are doing fine.

As someone who works in the above field, I’m surrounded by people struggling. But then I talk to my extended family members who are electricians, construction project managers, physician specialists, etc. and they feel little insecurity right now.
Anonymous
Could it be that the job market report also does not include many soon-to-be former federal workers? Those who took the DRP are still technically employed through September 30. And many others are still on administrative leave due to RIF-related litigation.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My friends who have young adults just out of college say the market is terrible for their grads.


If recent grads aren’t whiny WTH wannabes they’ll find a job. This latest working generation is entitled and lazy.


WSJ just had a good piece on this and generally a lot of entry level jobs are being outsourced to AI so they need far fewer entry level employees which obviously impacts new grads the most.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My friends who have young adults just out of college say the market is terrible for their grads.


If recent grads aren’t whiny WTH wannabes they’ll find a job. This latest working generation is entitled and lazy.


Yawn. Every generation has been called entitled and lazy by a previous generation.


But this time it’s true.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I think if you’re in the non-profit/government fields, it’s not good. Basically anything touching federal money that isn’t defense or homeland security. But a lot of industries are doing fine.

As someone who works in the above field, I’m surrounded by people struggling. But then I talk to my extended family members who are electricians, construction project managers, physician specialists, etc. and they feel little insecurity right now.


^ all likely running their own businesses, and obviously professions that are impossible to outsource to AI.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Could it be that the job market report also does not include many soon-to-be former federal workers? Those who took the DRP are still technically employed through September 30. And many others are still on administrative leave due to RIF-related litigation.


True but people expecting layoffs don't take out mortages. Yet housing data for the DMV looks better than the rest of the country (look at Case Shiller Index for January-May).

I know a ton of federal workers and people whose jobs rely on federal funding. It feels like it has been a bloodbath because for the federal workers at least, they have been in their jobs for a long time and didn't have a reason (prior to this most recent election) to expect mass lay offs. So it is shocking that my friends at USAID and their contractors have been laid off and that my friends at State are expecting layoffs. It also sucks that other organizations that rely on federal funding have had layoffs as well, though for those individuals it is not the first time.

And many of my federal worker friends haven't been laid off and don't expect to be (based on factors specific to their jobs).

There might be a massive economic downturn in the DMV, I don't know. But I do think it's possible there won't be. I think right now the pain is isolated to a minority of federal workers (about 10% based on a higher end estimate of 280,000 layoffs https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/26/politics/federal-layoffs-trump-musk-dg ) who have been laid off in a very public, cruel and intentionally traumatizing way. There are still hundreds of thousands of federal jobs in the DMV.
Anonymous
How can the bureau be off by 1400%? As said before they are cooking the books. Liars.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I think if you’re in the non-profit/government fields, it’s not good. Basically anything touching federal money that isn’t defense or homeland security. But a lot of industries are doing fine.

As someone who works in the above field, I’m surrounded by people struggling. But then I talk to my extended family members who are electricians, construction project managers, physician specialists, etc. and they feel little insecurity right now.


I'm surprised. Those professions need clients, and the pool of people who have money available to hire them is shrinking. They also have to deal with the same rising prices all of us do. Construction, especially, I would expect to have a lot of difficulty with pricing in their supply chain.
Anonymous
July data is showing weakening.
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