Thoughts on that updated job market data

Career Resources

• Find our job board, a referral link to Zapier, and more here.

• This is a REALLY good LinkedIn post from Michelle Volberg about strategically leveraging your network in your job search with the kinds of suggestions that I don’t often see.

• Mixed feelings sharing anything where the person claims the “top 1% of jobseekers” are doing this, but I do think her tips around following the money make a lot of sense - if a company announces a major new partnership, a new round of fundraising, etc., there’s a decent chance they’re going to be doing some hiring.

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New Insights on the Market

We got some even more drastic downward revisions this week, with the announcement that we actually created 900k fewer jobs between March 2024 and March 2025. This means that over the last 16 months, we’re actually seeing about 1.2M fewer payrolls - a staggering loss of jobs.

The biggest areas that saw their jobs downgraded were leisure and hospitality, retail, and the information sector (media, tech, and telecomm).

And nearly 5M people have part-time jobs out of necessity vs a preference for part-time work, and 6.4M are unemployed - up over 700k throughout the year.

Why are we seeing such drastic revisions?

One factor is that the survey data is becoming increasingly less reliable - we’ve gone from a 74% response rate a decade ago to around 35% as of April 2025. This means they’re doing a lot more estimation and there’s more room for error.

Are there any bright spots?

A few! One is that hourly earnings continue to rise with about a 3.7% increase over the course of 25%. Not huge but that’s something.

And there are a few areas that seem to be creating jobs - healthcare (though at more modest rates than we’ve historically seen) and education (though the start of the school year is a big factor there).

So where do we go from here?

I wish I knew! This is a really difficult situation. I’d like to think that there are experts trying to figure out how to incentivize job creation. It’s frustrating knowing how much money and resources are out there, but not being used to make the country better.

Personally, I’d focus on:

1. Flexibility: be open to part-time, contract, consulting, etc. Lean into side hustles or gig work.

2. Upskill: focus on areas where demand is strong (healthcare, data, AI, education).

3. Manage your finances: live below your means, even if things are going well now to buy yourself flexibility if you’re impacted by the market.

And remember, these labor markets are cyclical - we’ve been in worse situations and bounced back, and we will again, even if the news can feel very doom and gloom.

In the News

Today was a heavy news day. I am no fan of Charlie Kirk’s but I do believe strongly that violence is never the answer, and that ultimately, events like this are always going to cause more harm than good. Charlie Kirk did previously say that deaths are worth the cost to maintain the second amendment. Personally, I disagree with him and perhaps his death will help others evolve on that front.

And this gun violence against something of a celebrity is also overshadowing the 47th school shooting of 2025 - this time in Denver where two children were shot by another child. Earlier this week, a 13 year old in Tacoma, WA was arrested with an arsenal of guns - fortunately, before he was able to act out his ideations. But as someone that lives just half an hour or so from Tacoma, that certainly hit close to home.

Everytown and March for Our Lives are organizations advocating for gun safety and common sense gun control laws if you’re looking for an organization to channel your frustrations.

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer one (or more!) of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

My suggestion would be to group this under one job - could be your own consulting project or whatever. You don’t even need an LLC or formal business - simply pick a name for your own business and list the dates you’ve been doing your own thing between jobs. You can then use bullet points to highlight major projects (and those can be tweaked based on what you’re working on). This is how I navigated this on my own resume and helps things look more cohesive than listing a bunch of different jobs that can bury your more meaningful experience.

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