Job seekers are becoming more desperate to find work: ‘It’s not just about vibes anymore’

Job seekers are feeling less confident, prepared and financially secure in today’s labor market compared with earlier this year, according to a new report from ZipRecruiter.

The career site’s latest analysis shows job seekers’ outlook on the availability of roles, and their ability to get them, reached its lowest level in the second quarter of 2024 since the report began collecting data in January 2022.

Just 15% of people looking for jobs say their search is going well, compared with 38% who say their search is going poorly.

A growing share of people also say they expect job opportunities to decrease in the coming six months.

Meanwhile, their searches are growing more urgent: 43% of job seekers say they’re looking for jobs every day, up from 37% of people at the end of 2023.

“For over a year, economists have been talking about the ‘vibecession,’ or the disconnect between really strong economic data and really weak sentiment,” ZipRecruiter chief economist Julia Pollak tells CNBC Make It. “The issue now is that it’s not just about vibes anymore. The vibes are matching a clear deterioration in the labor market.”

Official Labor Department data shows it’s getting harder to find a new job. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in June, and length of joblessness increased while hiring has slowed, following a historic period of low joblessness and hiring booms during the post-pandemic economic recovery.

Even with the incremental changes, data indicates the job market is relatively stable, if cooling, but many Americans are feeling whiplash from the rapid-fire hiring and wage growth during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic recovery. Today’s job seekers may have greater financial needs as they look for work now that pandemic stimulus programs, student loan pauses and rent moratoriums have ended.

“You have lots of people whose financial situations are poor now relative to what they were at some point between the pandemic and now,” Pollak says.

But certain fields, particularly those sensitive to interest rate changes like manufacturing, automotive companies and tech, have seen more volatility with layoffs and reduced hiring. Getting hired has become more difficult for older workers above 65, Black and Hispanic workers, and recent grads under 24 years old, Pollak says.

Middle-income earners bringing in $48,000 to $74,999 saw the steepest drop in confidence, while high-earners with a salary of $115,000 or more are the only income group to feel better about the job market today compared with earlier in the year.

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