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Cornering The Job Market: America's Fading Faith in Economic Mobility & Gen Z Wants RTO??

• Pete Newsome

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Is the American Dream slipping away? A new Wall Street Journal poll shows only 1 in 4 Americans believe they can raise their standard of living (the lowest confidence since the 1980s). Even more striking, nearly 70% say hard work no longer guarantees success, a sentiment uniting people across politics, income, and age.

At the same time, today’s job search feels broken. With LinkedIn applications up 45% thanks to one-click apply, candidates are caught in a numbers game they can’t win. The smarter move? Skip mass-applying and pick up the phone; connecting with a recruiter can set you apart in a crowded market.

Meanwhile, workplace culture is shifting fast. Gen Z is showing surprising interest in office life, with many craving connection after years of remote work. And after a decade of encouraging self-expression, big companies like Microsoft and Google are drawing stricter lines between activism and the workplace.

But it’s not all bleak. For those with AI skills, opportunity has never been greater. AI researcher postings have doubled, with salaries pushing $230,000 and total packages climbing toward half a million. This stark divide between widespread economic pessimism and explosive growth in specialized fields paints a vivid picture of where the future is headed.

In this episode, we unpack what these trends mean for job seekers, professionals, and employers. Plus tips on how you can navigate the shifting landscape to your advantage.

News Articles:
1. https://www.wsj.com/economy/wsj-norc-economic-poll-73bce003?mod=hp_lead_pos8 
2. https://www.businessinsider.com/applying-for-jobs-easy-hard-to-stand-out-2025-8
3. https://www.thehrdigest.com/why-gen-z-is-swapping-work-from-home-for-watercooler-chats/
4. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/workplace-employee-activism-company-response-7ef095f6

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Pete Newsome:

Today's job market headlines include why Gen Z wants to return to the office, how job seekers can improve AI literacy, politics in the office becoming a thing of the past, and yet another CEO is fired for having an inappropriate relationship. But first there's a new Wall Street Journal poll that just came out. It shows that only 25% of Americans think they have a good shot at raising their standard of living. This is the lowest confidence level seen since the late 1980s. Nearly 70% of those surveyed say that the notion of hard work leading to success is outdated or perhaps was never true at all. This poll reveals a massive gap between what the economic data is showing and what people are actually feeling, and it's not limited to a specific group either. This pessimism seems to span political parties, ages, genders and even income levels, where households earning over $100,000 still have little faith in what's happening these days. What surprises me about this poll is that it's not generational. We know that young people aren't feeling very optimistic these days. They don't believe that they can do better than their parents. They're having a very difficult time getting ahead due to inflation. Being able to buy a home seems like an impossible thing to achieve for many young people. But when that American dream is subsiding for the older generation, for people my age who grew up believing this? Well, not only believing it, but seeing it happen. Most people I grew up with started with nothing or very little and were able to succeed through hard work and time. Time is a big factor in this. We've seen that American dream really come to fruition. Seen that American dream really come to fruition, but this poll is really just a bad sign for what people are experiencing personally and not believing that they will be able to get ahead.

Pete Newsome:

In other news, business Insider published an article titled Applying for Jobs has Never Been Easier. That's Exactly the Problem. It focuses on what's happened with the one-click apply option that exists on all the major job boards. Linkedin job applications in particular have surged over 45% year over year and it just shows what a mess has been created with this option, and it's bad for candidates. It's equally bad for recruiters. Now, I know that no one feels bad for recruiters and that's okay, but the goal of any job seeker is to get their resume to stand out from the pile, and it's unfortunate that there's so many people who give career advice.

Pete Newsome:

I see this online all the time that imply it's a numbers game. This article talks about that, too, where a candidate believed that by applying to more jobs, it would just increase his chance for success. And that's just not reality. Success and that's just not reality. There's a lot stacked against candidates right now, with AI tools advertising the ability to apply to hundreds of jobs with no effort, or sites like scale jobs that I just discovered, where you can quite literally hire people to apply for jobs on your behalf.

Pete Newsome:

The bottom line is, as a candidate, you can't win this numbers game and you shouldn't even try. The best thing you can do if you're applying for jobs is to try to just let the recruiter who's responsible for the role know who you are. Of course, if there's someone who can refer you, that's great, but odds are you're not going to have a personal connection to leverage. Just pick up the phone and try to get a hold of the person who's recruiting for the job. You probably won't reach them live, that's okay. Just leave a voicemail. Let them know who you are, let them know the job you applied to and that you're genuinely interested in the role. It will go a long, long way to notifying the recruiter that you exist and allowing them to look for your resume, and they want to do that right. A recruiter doesn't want to go through a pile of unqualified resumes they don't. They want to find the candidate who's going to get hired in the most efficient way possible. So leave them a voicemail, try to reach them live. Let them know who you are. That's all you need to do. It won't work 100% of the time Nothing will but it will go a long way towards increasing the odds in your favor.

Pete Newsome:

Moving on, there's an article in the Washington Post today that shares five ways job seekers can improve their AI literacy. They say that you should experiment with AI tools in your everyday life. So use ChatGPT or Gemini or Grok for simple tasks like planning a vacation or budgeting for groceries. It'll make you comfortable with it. I like that. It's a good tip. They also say that you should translate your personal use into professional scenarios so you can start to understand how AI will fit into your job. So use it for drafting emails, analyzing data, maybe outlining presentations. I like that too.

Pete Newsome:

But be very careful in letting AI be your voice. Don't use what it produces verbatim. It's very obvious to those who use AI a lot when they see something written by chat GPT, so use it as a guide, but don't just copy and paste from there. It's just a bad idea and it will, quite frankly, make you look worse as a result of doing it. Another thing you can do is take free courses on AI that are offered so OpenAI and Google. They offer these courses for free that allow you to increase your skills in that area.

Pete Newsome:

I think it's a great idea. They suggest keeping an AI journal where you document what you try, what works, what doesn't. I think that's okay. I don't know how practical that is, but the more you use it, the better you're going to be. There's no question about that. So it does make sense to try and see what works and what doesn't, because AI is not going to have the same success level in every scenario. Anyone who's used it a lot certainly discovers that eventually and then showcase AI on your resume Okay, now we're really getting into it where they say don't just list AI experience, but specify what exactly you've done. I think that's a great idea. We know that employers want to see AI skills right now. I mean, there's nothing hotter in the job market but just make sure you can back it up the rule of putting anything on your resume is always that you have to be prepared to answer questions about it. So if you say you can do it, make sure that you actually can.

Pete Newsome:

In other news there's an HR Digest article titled why Gen Z is Swapping Work from Home for Water Cooler Chats. Okay, so here's what this article is about. It says that Gen Z now wants to go back to work, or at least many of them do. According to the survey, 38% of Gen Z workers say they feel socially isolated as a direct result of remote work. Almost half said they're considering switching from a home-based job to a career that involves more direct contact with other people, and four in 10 admitted to feeling lonely because of the nature of their work.

Pete Newsome:

This is no surprise to me. A lot of people who were more experienced in their career have sensed this coming and felt that it was inevitable because you haven't yet had time to establish a professional or even a large personal network when you're young and just starting out in your career, and it's a problem. I mean, look, we all love working at home I certainly do, but I'm experienced. I have a big network. I've been in the workforce for longer than I'd care to mention, but in my case, our young employees. They just haven't had that opportunity yet and it's something that I worry about on their behalf. I mean, I love that they get to work remotely, that they get to work from anywhere. That's awesome and I'm so happy for them. But you have to find ways to force building a network. You can't just let it happen naturally, like it used to, because it won't when you're remote. So we're seeing this now in the result of surveys like this, where young people are realizing that there are some negatives that outweigh the positives, potentially, of being able to work virtually. So it's an interesting survey, not a surprise, but what I'll be curious to see is whether this trend continues, where the younger generation is actually asking to come back to work versus fighting it. We'll have to see how that plays out.

Pete Newsome:

There's another Wall Street Journal article titled the Boss has had it With All the Office Activists Now. For years, office activism was not just tolerated. In many cases it was celebrated, it was encouraged. But apparently those days are over. Microsoft and Google recently terminated employees who staged protests inside their offices. Tesla got rid of an engineer who turned his Cybertruck into a protest billboard, and it seems like those days are just over. Now. Jp Morgan has gone so far as to say they're just not tolerating it at all. They're banning political debate, they're banning internal discussions about return to office mandates. I mean, these companies just aren't going to have it anymore. And despite the backlash and they're getting a lot of backlash the executives are refusing to negotiate with the internal pressure campaigns, and the reason is because they now can't.

Pete Newsome:

To me, this shift indicates just how far the pendulum has really swung to being an employer's market, which it is now. It really looks like the days of bringing your whole self to work have been replaced with almost a 1950s style mandate where work is work, keep your outside life to yourself. We don't want to hear it in here. It'll be interesting to see how long it will last. I don't know. I mean it depends really on what the talent war is like. In some areas, employees are still very much in control. There was an article that was just published by Recruitanomics titled the AI Talent War is Heating Up. I think it's been heating up for a while, but the demand is just skyrocketing right now, where monthly job postings for AI researchers have more than doubled in the past year and a half. I mean that is just a massive number. The top 10% of AI researchers right now are averaging nearly 230K a year, while compensation packages from the postings that exist right now, once you add in the perks and benefits like stock options, are approaching half a million dollars. I mean these are just big, big numbers that we're seeing right now and I don't know if it's going to continue, but I believe that for the foreseeable future, ai is just where it's at and I say this over and over since I started doing this almost daily show and it's because the numbers are just staggering. In this area, they are undeniable.

Pete Newsome:

A couple other things for today. The CEO of Nestle has been fired due to an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. This just happened. He's already been replaced. Now, of course, this is on the heels of Coldplaygate. What is going on with these guys? I mean, this isn't new. This isn't something that should be a surprise to anyone who gets busted for having a relationship with someone who's a direct report or a subordinate. Don't do it. I mean guys and I say guys because that seems to be who it is, maybe not all the time, but just you know. Wait until you leave the office, go find someone else. Don't play this game. You're going to get burned. You're going to lose. We'll see who's next. But Nestle CEO, you're out of there. Good luck with whatever happens next.

Pete Newsome:

And then Congress has returned to work after taking off the month of August. I mean, how nice is that when you just get to go home for a month after doing what many consider to be not so great of a job. You're not really accountable until the next election, so just go ahead, take a month off. The American people are struggling, but what the hell, go enjoy your summer. I guess, yeah, congress, get back to work.

Pete Newsome:

And then your fun fact for the day there was a 1910 survey that found more than half of all US workers woke up before sunrise to start work. I mean, this really highlights how early our typical schedule is compared to what existed for all of human history, where work started in an entirely different way, where I don't know that most of us wake up before sunrise now, but we certainly don't start working before sunrise anymore, and that's a good thing. I think that's a positive evolution for sure. So look, be glad we live when we do. It is a time of opportunity. It's not easy, but it's better than it used to be, so we have that going for us for sure. So thank you for listening. Please like, subscribe, comment. If you disagree with anything I say or want to debate it or agree, I want to hear that too, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.