This Week in Jobs: Why Profitable Companies Keep Laying People Off

Profitable companies are handing out pink slips, and the explanations are starting to feel like a second insult. This week, we dig into Meta's 14,000 cuts, the wave rolling through Wall Street, and why "we're investing in AI" has become the corporate equivalent of it's not you, it's me, even when revenue and profits are healthy. The real damage isn't just in the headcount numbers. It's the widening trust gap between employers and workers, and what it does to how people plan their lives.

Then we zoom out, and the view is unsettling. A Verizon CEO is forecasting 20 to 30% unemployment within five years. Layoffs are already baked into 2026 budgets. So why aren't warnings like these creating more urgency? We get into why so many people feel frozen and what it means when decision-makers are betting on AI to replace roles, even when the technology is still half-baked.

From there, we connect the dots to two slow-motion crises most people feel but rarely name out loud: retirement insecurity and early-career collapse. Older workers are postponing retirement not by choice, but out of necessity. Younger workers are losing confidence fast, questioning whether their degrees are worth the debt, and whether the entry-level jobs they were promised are disappearing before they even start.

We close with the hiring experience as it actually exists right now: vague job descriptions, salary opacity, interview chaos, AI-powered scams, and growing resentment over unpaid take-home assignments. And we leave you with the one theme we keep returning to, because it's the only thing that holds up across every scenario we discuss.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Week Of Layoffs

Peter Porebski 0:00

Welcome to the weekend jobs.

Pete Newsome 0:02

This has been another week of layoffs.

Peter Porebski 0:03

Yeah, we're back. I feel like we're in Groundhog's Day talking about some of the same stuff we talked about last week.

Pete Newsome 0:09

Yeah, it's it seems like it's become a recurring theme, right? Specifically profitable companies having layoffs. So we're going to get into that. But there were a few big themes this week, right? Meta just announced layoffs this week or today, or yesterday, actually. 14,000.

Peter Porebski 0:25

I think it was yesterday.

Meta Layoffs And The AI Story

Pete Newsome 0:26

Wall Street Banks, more layoffs there, right? That's happening. We're going to talk about new research from Zipper Creator. It gets into why people are working longer, right? Not necessarily because they want to, but let's just get into this meta story. 14,000 cuts. What they say it's because of AI. There's a lot of distrust about that. Companies, that's been one of the themes for 2026 so far where companies say they're laying off because they're replacing headcount with AI. They're investing in AI. There's a lot of skepticism about whether that's why it's actually happening. What's your take?

Peter Porebski 1:05

Listen, we I know I we talked about this last week as well, but I think that a lot of the companies right now are they're giving this message that hey, we're laying people off, but we're doing good as a company. Wall Street, Wall Street is rewarding them, their stock goes up. They are saying it's because they're innovating, it's because of AI. I think the general population and the reason the sentiment is that they're lying is partially there's this mistrust of authority right now, it seems, and companies. And it's I've seen it growing through my entire professional career that you have to look out for yourself and you shouldn't, and this is rightfully you shouldn't just blindly trust any corporation. And I think that people are rolling that together, saying that, hey, these companies are just trying to save face there. Why would they tell the truth, even if they were doing not doing so well that they've got to lay people off? They're gonna say it's a good thing that they're laying people off and that their message is cloudy. So I think that's the root of it is that people just generally don't trust companies to be truthful.

Pete Newsome 2:02

So I would understand it if the companies weren't doing well, but they wanted to portray it as something differently. But these companies are doing well. Meta had over 200 billion in revenue in 2025 and 60 billion in profits. This is a company that is not hurting apart from their driving, and yet they're going forward with this. And so I guess my question is why would they say it's one thing that's entirely different? I it doesn't make sense to me.

Peter Porebski 2:34

Yeah, it's you have to look at it as like them trying to automate and there are deficiencies. I believe that it's them just cutting back because we know Meta is one of those companies that kind of went crazy during COVID with hiring, hiring. A lot of these big tech companies did, and I think it's we're still at the phase where maybe they they are over on headcount of where they'd like to be, and so they're just getting back to their ideal stage, I guess. That's how I view it, and then they're using oh AI as a bonus for us, is how it how we're allowing ourselves to do that.

Profitable Layoffs Spread Across Industries

Pete Newsome 3:05

Yeah, so it's not just meta this week, unfortunately. Nike also just announced layoffs, they're going to get lay off 1400 people, and then the PGA tour after the successful Masters last week, which was great to watch, they're laying people off too. Who's left at this point?

Peter Porebski 3:24

And that, yeah, it's it's crazy. I know Nike, they forecasted a drop in sales. China expected a fall as well. So theirs is a little bit more traditional, but it does seem like it's hitting us all over.

Pete Newsome 3:39

Yeah, it really does. Every aspect of the market right now seems to be impacted by this. Not they didn't say, claim it was due to layoffs. I think Nike in particular is struggling, so they're an example of a company not doing well. But this is this is just fitted print. There was an article in the New York Times this week that talked about Wall Street banks that have laid off 15,000 employees so far, or laid off in two one, despite having record profits. So this is just more of the same. I guess the question is how far is this gonna go? Is it at what point will it stop?

Peter Porebski 4:11

It's crazy to hear the CEO of Bank of America in December talking about how AI is not a threat to anyone's jobs, and then this month he's giving quotes about how AI gives us them places to go and that they could never have imagined before. It's a huge shift, I think. And it's gonna be rough, I think, as these companies that are they're cutting large amounts of their workforce while people are seeing that they're cutting the workforce, they're seeing exactly what they see. I you're they're cutting workforce, but they're profitable. So they're clearly not spreading the wealth with their team. So it's gonna, I think that it's gonna come back around as more and more of the general population becomes disenfranchised with this.

Forecasts Of 30% Unemployment

Pete Newsome 4:54

Yeah, and there's more to come, right? That that's that was also in the news this week, where the Verizon CEO predicts 20 to 30 percent unemployment in the next two to five years. And he's not the only one two to five years. That's not 10 years out. Last week we just talked about a report that showed maybe up to 10, 10 to 15 in the next two to five years. This is double that. I mean, this uh what I and I believe that's very possible. Fall into that camp. And call me a doomer if you want, but the evidence is there, we're seeing it, the layoffs are actually happening. We know how prevalent AI is becoming, but yet a lot of people still are dismissive of that. It's not a statement that is profound to say the least and should be getting more attention, and it's just not. And I don't understand why not to sound like chicken little, but why more people aren't concerned that this guy may actually be falling to some degree.

Peter Porebski 5:55

If you take it for what it is, yes, it's one set one more person saying this. You can make the argument, oh, he's the CEO of Verizon, he's an expert in the telecom industry, he doesn't know about AI necessarily, or he's he's not an expert in this field, he's just some guy who runs a big company. Do you want to boil it down? This is and I'm that's I'm like, I'm not going, I'm not gonna go all the way that, but he is not the only one saying this kind of thing. So that's why I'm not gonna, I'm not if he was by himself being the only one, then I might be a little bit more. But we're getting more and more of these people who are running companies, and whether it's true or not, even that is the thought process and the sentiment behind the people who are in charge of making these decisions. So even if you say AI is not, can't doesn't have these capabilities. Unfortunately, for the average worker, the people running the companies think it does, so they're gonna act on that.

Pete Newsome 6:48

Yeah, so yeah. So put aside what's behind it, they're saying it's going to happen, they're warning you usually it would be the opposite. CEOs would say, don't worry, all is well. Yep. This guy is making a statement, as many others have, that shouldn't cause brave concern. Why do you think it's not? Why do you think that there's different groups that could be addressing this, right? A lot of people will turn to the government and expect the government to do something about it. I'm not necessarily one of those people, but it doesn't get more press. There's an article, it doesn't get talked about much, and then everyone just moves on about their day until the next article comes out, and no one's really reacting to this.

Peter Porebski 7:33

I think it's that's human nature. It's hard to see the big picture, and it's a lot of people are like, all right, it's great. I understand that maybe, but what do I do about it? How what's I the average citizen is like, all right, cool. How do I how do I do this other than feel depressed? Like then maybe I guess they can make when we've talked about this, you can make changes in your own career and you can make sure that you feel like, but there is so much of it that is out of your control, it's hard to grasp how huge I feel like this is gonna be.

Pete Newsome 8:03

And maybe that's it, right? Maybe the enormity of it is just too much where you really can't comprehend it. And even if someone says it's happening and you believe them, it's really hard to wrap your brain around that, about what that wouldn't look like. But when I see it, because we look at the job market data daily, weekly, we see what's happening, we see what just a minor change in the employment rate does to the economy. This is this would be devastating if it's even close. It is devastating. And to your point, what do you do about it? Wow, other than uh worrying is it does it really serve any purpose? Do you think that people just don't know what action they should take?

Peter Porebski 8:50

That's exactly what I think it is. I think a lot in a lot of cases, it's people are looking at it and they're like, okay, what do I do about this? We look at build the a lot of these communities, they're building AI data centers, and you see where the communities are rallying and going to the like and they're fighting against they're like, Oh, we don't want one in our backyard because of X, Y, and Z. That is a concrete thing that they can fight against or push back against or change or whatever. Whereas just saying that there is going to be 30% unemployment is such an abstract term. People are like, where do I even start to address that? I think that is what a lot of people, that's how people, at least I know in my life I've talked to, they're like, okay, what do I do? What do I do about that beyond make sure I know how to use Claude or Chat GPT or like some AI tools? Like, how do I affect that? Because maybe that's not even enough.

Pete Newsome 9:38

Yeah, it's a heck of a question. I have a feeling we're going to be talking about this just on an increasing basis. There's another report that said 87% of HR leaders this year have layoffs planned or have already enacted layoffs. So it's not a future thing. And two to five years to me sounds like no time at all. That's in the future, but all indications are this is happening already. The ball is already rolling down the hill.

Peter Porebski 10:07

Yep. Yeah, it's it's gonna be a wild ride over we'll say the next yeah, to till 2028.

Why The Warnings Aren’t Landing

Older Workers Expect To Keep Working

Pete Newsome 10:14

And so let's shift gears. Are we have we have we beaten the layoff course for a day? I don't know what's happening there. We're gonna talk about it next week because you can almost guarantee that there's going to be more reports of this, and that's that's almost a given at this point. Yeah, so let's talk about something altogether different. And this is the zipper cutter report that came out this week. It said foreign 10 workers who are six-year-old or say they'll never fully stop working. Okay, so I guess that's just as depressing as the layoff conversation.

Peter Porebski 10:50

Yeah, it's funny because you hear always here when you're you always need to have something to do, stay active, all that as you retire. So you could look at it and be like, oh, great, people are gonna stay active and they're going to not they're gonna keep working because they want to. But no, it's 60% of them said that a financial necessity is the reason why you know the median savings for for people 60 plus is what 100,000 versus their goal of 250,000. Yeah, people aren't having enough savings. That so it is it's going to be that compounded with what we just talked about. Whereas imagine that there is these huge swaths of people who are unemployed, and then you've got older people who are working later than they normally would have in the past. That's a bad combination.

Pete Newsome 11:33

Yeah, people are living longer, inflation is real, and people don't have enough savings. One of the numbers that jumped out at me is that 28% of women, six-year-old, have zero savings. None. That's also terrifying to see.

Peter Porebski 11:49

So the only thing I can like caveat in my mind, because I saw that stat and I was like, okay, so does that take into account maybe married couples? And if you're talking about people with retirement age, that they're going to be older, it's more traditionally maybe a stay-at-home mom or a wife who's maybe the husband has the account for them. So they don't technically have any savings, but they're, you know, that's that was my only thought on that as to how I could maybe find some like a silver lining in that is that it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds.

Pete Newsome 12:19

Yeah, I don't know that that could contribute to it, but we see the trend just from our own data at a young age that men outpace women with savings in all categories, all age categories. So presumably there's a lot of women in younger categories that aren't married. So it could be part of it, but I think this is just an overall trend and a problem, of course, which surprises me. All right. I would expect women to maybe not. I don't know. Should women be better savers than men? Men are in position overall earnings are higher for men. So I'm sure that's a major contributor to uh to it as well.

Peter Porebski 12:54

Yeah, and the we would I know they looked at the different reasons and the worries for these retirees, and it wasn't a surprise to me that 62% inflation, 59% health care, 42% outliving savings. That one was kind of that's a newer, definitely a newer one. As you said, life expectancy is getting longer. People are thinking, hey, if I retire at 65, what if I live to 90? Am I gonna have enough money to last that long? And that's a most people absolutely will not.

Pete Newsome 13:23

And but four and ten say except to never stop working.

Peter Porebski 13:27

40. That is and that's that part I can't reconcile in my mind because if as you as we say, like, what are people gonna do when you and you're 85, you shouldn't be working if you don't want to? That's uh and how do what how do we handle a workforce where there's people 90 plus who are working out of necessity, not because how they want to, and that's being remaining in political office. Hey, yeah, let like we can talk about Congress all we want, but yeah.

Job Changers Moving Abroad Faster

Pete Newsome 14:00

Yeah, so that's going on this week, too. The report came out. Another one very different, but I want to talk about this next is that the labs reported the US job switchers are doubling, have doubled the rate at which they're leaving the country to take a job. And I found that fascinating, which I I think is great. Go explore the world. There's remote opportunities now, it's much easier to do, but it's doubled in the past couple of years. So six percent, which sounds high to me. Six percent of job changers are leaving. Does that sound like a it's possibly that high?

Peter Porebski 14:37

That it's that sound that's higher than I would have expected. I would have thought it would it's with the rise of remote since COVID, it's a lot, it's easier than ever to be able to do that. I'm I was surprised because, and this is may mainly, I guess, my ignorance on it, the visa process of people being the ease of being able to just go do that, but apparently it's not as cumbersome as I thought it was. And it, yeah, a lot of people are taking advantage of lower cost of living in different countries, better security, maybe better healthcare in some other countries where it's cheaper, all these different factors. So it's when you look at it that way, I guess it's not that surprising.

Pete Newsome 15:13

Yeah, and I see countries advertising actively, attracting people that come there, making it very attractive from a tax standpoint. A lot of people point the lifestyle benefits. So I get it. Would you do that? Would you lead the country or mode?

Peter Porebski 15:29

So I guess I could. It would be, I've thought about it. It's always been like a thing I'm like, oh, that's a cool, but it's it seems so like such a huge leap that I don't know. I don't know if I could bring myself to do it. I was thinking, I was like, what if I moved out west or even something like that? And that seems like hard. Like, I can't imagine living on like the other side of the world. I would like to, but I guess I need to travel. I'm not as big of a traveler as some people are.

Pete Newsome 15:50

Yeah, I don't have any stats behind this. I should have pulled them in anticipation of this thought, but in my professional life, I I've done very few Americans, American citizens who've left the country, but many people who've come into America. It seems like other countries are much more mobile than Americans by default. I've always had that feeling, and I think that still holds true today. So that's why that 6% sounds high to me. And the report did show that foreign-born workers are, I think, three times more likely to leave the US, which that's easy to understand why. But I don't know if you've had that same experience where just it seems like Americans just are less prone to pack up and leave the country, let alone the state they live in.

Peter Porebski 16:32

I I yeah, I think that's my sister-in-law is from Europe. It seems to be more of a prevalent thing. Maybe when you are grow up in a place where going to another country is the same as you were in Florida, going to Georgia. That would be going to another country, or not even because Florida's bigger than half of the countries in Europe. Uh, I think that's maybe that's an American thing. It's just how huge America is. Like we go to other states, we travel other, but if you're used to just going country to country and you're really only an hour away from where you started, maybe that's less of a big deal.

Young Workers Lose Job Market Confidence

Pete Newsome 17:02

Yeah. So interesting to see. It'll be interesting to follow how that trend evolves over time. If that continue to grow, it's doubled since 2021. So will it continue? We'll have to wait and see. So younger workers.

Peter Porebski 17:19

Yeah, I was like, you want to talk about the uh that that study that came out.

Pete Newsome 17:23

Yeah, what's your take on that? Younger workers struggling in the job market, also a theme that has been very prevalent and not going away. I think that could only get worse for the foreseeable future. But younger workers are having a tough time in the job market right now.

Peter Porebski 17:40

Yeah, it was a Gallup found in 20Q4 that 20% of the young workers say it's a good time to find a quality job, which was 62% in 2021. So that's scary to me because that's almost more that's almost scarier than the retire me, retiree thing, because these are people that are coming into the workforce. These are people that have their entire career ahead of them and they feel that pessimistic about just the state of it. And that's why I feel like we're on the edge of like something is coming. Like there is got there is going to be some sort of change because we're almost going to hit a critical mass. When you have all these young people who can't find jobs, can't find jobs that they even remotely all feel dissatisfied. There is going to be huge changes in the, I'll be really generous and say in the coming decade of the job market.

Pete Newsome 18:35

Yeah, in my my personal experience, is that I've been on LinkedIn for over 20 years now, and I've noticed over the past probably year and a half, the increasing number of messages that I receive from friends whose children are getting out of school and just struggling, or they they just don't have opportunities. That wasn't a thing just a few years ago. And the unemployment rate indicates that this isn't just sentiment, it's real. There's the widest gap right now that exists between overall unemployment and young workers. So it's not just a feeling, it's it's a very real occurrence right now.

Peter Porebski 19:15

As much as I people are, I don't tend to fall into the category of oh, we need the government to fix this. That's something is going to have to be done because on the current path we are in, it's companies are just going to keep consolidating. They're just going to keep going the AI route and laying off people and having less entry level, which we talked about last week. Where is there's no incentive for a private business to hire these young people when they can save money, have an asset, have an AI tool, and not have to worry about the unpredictability of a human worker? They're going to they're going to behave in a pretty predictable, I think, manner, and we can see where it's going. So who is going to stop them from doing that?

College Promises And The Debt Trap

Pete Newsome 19:59

Yeah. How much accountability? Maybe that's the best way to phrase it, should there be on the educational institutions right now that are encouraging young people to attend their schools? I have a high school senior right now. We've been going through it. The amount of mail and emails that have come over the past few years. I they're not being altruistic here, but they're encouraging young people to attend college. They're they'll gladly take the money. At what point should they be accountable for the results on the other side of that? And there is no accountability today.

Peter Porebski 20:35

There isn't. And I think that this is maybe a very, if not unique, a very accented, accented thing in the US where these universities are effectively becoming for-profit. You go to it, you look at universities in Europe or wherever, it's a fraction of the cost to go. There's not so even if there is this desire to go or the draw, if you go to college or university or whatever, in say I'll just say Europe in general, there isn't the huge cost of it. So there's not as much of the drawback as there is here, where people are spending a lot of money and a lot of time on something that's not really necessarily going to give them the result that they think. And I'm totally fine with people going and get whatever degree you want, spend whatever money you want, but go into it with your eyes open. Don't that, and I think that's where we where the universities do a bad job. They say, hey, you young, you naive kid, you are going to get all of these different things. And then there's a little tiny asterisk at the bottom. You uh you must do X, Y, blah, blah, blah. And then they glaze over that. And that's how I feel like we are where we're at right now with a US education system.

Pete Newsome 21:42

And I I don't even get the sense that they acknowledge that there's a problem. Yeah. You have to take action to solve this. And I I would say drastic action starting long before college with our education system. But I don't know if they Talk about being disingenuous. I don't know if they believe that they're doing a good job.

Peter Porebski 22:06

You think that they're they truly believe that like they are still on the right path and this is the best way to go about it?

Pete Newsome 22:13

I don't know how they could, but I think they might. I I really do. I've spoken to different career centers at colleges over the past few years, and they think they're doing a great job. At least they that's what they're saying publicly. But don't you believe there has to be some underlying panic in higher education right now? Seeing the data, right? This is data that they know the sentiment, they see the results of what's happening with their grads. And this isn't just bachelor's degrees, right? We're talking graduate degrees, master's, PhDs. They are struggling. There are the supply is outpacing the demand. We're seeing a trend that is that indicates that's going to get worse. So at what point are they going to be held accountable? Is I guess as long as attendance is up and there's record admissions at these schools, the competitiveness to get into college is increasing at a great rate. So it's no one's getting the memo.

Peter Porebski 23:21

There's not going to be any accountability from say a general public university who that is because, like you said, as long as the general public is true, there's more people trying to get in than they have slots, they supply and demand, they have the power. They're going to continue on their path until we start to see the majority of sentiment shift where people say, hey, this isn't even worth it. Then I think we'll start to see real changes in. We're seeing some academic programs are changing to be more technical focused or focused on a specific career path. But that's that's not really any different than an engineering degree today is not a huge leaps and bounds different than an engineering degree was 20 years ago in terms of what it's preparing you for as a career. But I think that so we may have things like data analytics or AI degrees, which I would argue is dumb at the rate that things are changing. You go to school for something that by the time you graduate it, it's completely obsolete. But you can are we can argue about the theory and all that stuff. I just think until the general population changes their mind and we start to see it, the businesses aren't going to, and I'm gonna call them businesses, the schools, businesses are not going to change their ways.

Pete Newsome 24:36

I was at a college campus, a top 20 college campus in the past week with my son, and I heard virtually no talk about AI on campus. They talked about a lot of aspects of campus life and education that these young people can get there, and it's all very impressive. But I kept waiting, I kept listening for it. It just I didn't hear it mentioned once in two days.

Peter Porebski 25:05

So it's just because it's about right now. You see, it means it's about the experience, it's about oh, it's and listen, it's great. I like I loved college, but in terms of practicality, like the people that I see that are like spending all of I was very lucky in that I did not come out of college with huge amounts of debt. Some people that I know did, and I can only imagine being saddled with that. I know people who are my age in their mid-30s that are still dealing with that, and that's crazy to me. That is still going on and is going to be something that a 20-year-old right now is gonna have to deal with.

Pete Newsome 25:41

And so then we wonder why people are saying they don't believe they're ever going to retire, they're ever going to stop working. It's a vicious cycle that's starting to form.

Peter Porebski 25:52

Yep. Yep.

Job Postings That Make Candidates Quit

Pete Newsome 25:52

And so if you're with us, let us know your thoughts on college. We're gonna move on to our next topic. But um, always interested to hear feedback. We tend to uh live in a bit of a bubble with this because we see the data, but real world experiences matter as much as anything else in this regard. So we're always interested to hear other opinions. But let's there's uh one other thing that really I thought was interesting this week, specific to the job market. It was a report from Monster on job search deal breakers. Did you see that guy?

Peter Porebski 26:23

Yeah, the monster deal breakers thing with all it was uh there were parts of it that were surprising to me, but for the most part, it's in line with a lot of what we're seeing of just the sentiment in the general of the job market and how job seekers feel about the postings online, the interview process of these companies, and how many like of these companies are just doing a bad job at that.

Pete Newsome 26:45

Yeah, and there's some everyone's skeptical right now. Employers, recruiters are skeptical of fake resumes, fake job candidates, job seekers are skeptical about jobs, ghost jobs, fake jobs, whatever you want to call it. Uh, I know there's a lot of scams out there. We've seen that data too, right? We think we talked about it last week, a LinkedIn report showing that in the first half of 2025, there was half a billion in scams perpetuated on LinkedIn. And we know that's happening. But as it relates to this, isn't really tied to malice. This is tied to just sloppy work. And yeah, my sense is no one intends to have a job bad job posting. There's no, this isn't they're not intentionally bad. It's just something most companies, or many companies at least, don't put a lot of time and thought into. They have need to hire, they want to get a job posting up quickly. So I don't necessarily think it's done with bad intentions, but the perception is that it's very discouraging to candidates when they see bad job posting. 60% of job posting, job seekers won't apply to a job that doesn't list the salary rate. So let's talk about that one. Do you think companies do that intentionally? Are they trying to hide something? It's not won't come out very well.

Peter Porebski 28:07

Well, I mean, I've seen both ends of it. I've seen companies, I've seen where it's pure slop, but I've also seen companies that have a policy like where we've got there are still companies that are gonna try to lowball people and they don't want they want to try and keep it very opaque. That's changing. I know a lot of states have laws against that. So that's becoming, I think, that's gonna go away, I would say, in the next five, 10 years that every I think every job will have it have to have at least some base salary range where what the expectation is. But it's funny because we were talking about whether this is just companies being sloppy or if this is maliciousness. I saw a post on Reddit and it was like a it was a some job seekers forum, and it was people talking about this. Oh, they never get back to me, or oh, this and it was a lot of the things in this survey people were complaining about. And there was a person on there, they're like a recruit, they were a recruiter, and they're like, hey, the thing you have to realize with this is you say like they didn't do like they is half the time some first job. Maybe this is an what if this is just an HR admin, this is their first job, and they're just incompetent. They're like, think about every person you worked with. There's good people and there's bad people. And the person behind this who is being tasked to do this, maybe they're just sloppy, they left something out, or they get overwhelmed and they just forget. Like it's that's the some people forget that like the person on the other end of this, there is an entire industry of that is people in charge of hiring. And you just like any other company, you have good workers, you have bad workers, people who remember things really well and do great jobs, people who do a bad job at it. So there is any number of any parameters on the back end that could affect how your job experience.

Pete Newsome 29:43

And I think you've nailed it. There are some companies that put a lot of thought and care into their job descriptions, spend the time to make them attractive as they could possibly be, as representative of the job as it can be. But I think that is not the norm at all.

Peter Porebski 30:02

I think hiring managers companies aren't hiring all the time. It's something they do every once in a while. And maybe, oh, they oh, next time we got to remember to do this because we learned all these lessons. 90 days later, three, four months later, they're like they forget two of them. They they address two of them, forget two of them, and we're back. It's a cycle. If you're not doing it all the time and they don't have a process for it, and it's an afterthought, it's not surprising to me that we get bad job descriptions, that we get things left out, that we get all these extra bad experiences in in interviews.

Pete Newsome 30:32

Yeah, a lot of job teams don't realize this, but in the recruiting process, well, I'll say two things on this. My own experience when I was selling staffing services, which I did for years, I would never take a job requirement, the details of a job requirement based on a job description. I would quite literally put the job description aside if someone handed me one or someone sent it via email, if I was on a phone call, and I would say, share with me your true hiring criteria. And the vast majority of the time, that didn't resemble what was on the job description because that had to go through a legal process, some sort of approval through HR. It was often structured, it was often dated. And what the actual hiring manager cared about very loosely resembled what was on a job description almost all the time. So that became my practice as someone who needed to match a candidate to the actual need. That's how I make my living today. That's how I made my living when I was selling staffing services all day, every day. And I didn't ever want to rely on what was on a written job description. So that we know for sure. And still today, any recruiting company that I know of, and these are companies who, as I just alluded to, make their living based on success in the job search, having a high degree of accuracy in when it comes to matching the candidate to the knee, the kid who's going to get hired. Everyone has what I'll call an intake call, where you gather more information, right? You look beyond what's on a job description. So I understand why job seekers have a negative perception, but I'm when I see these stats and how few people or how many people will avoid applying to a job because they don't like what's on the job description, I think they're limiting their opportunities that way. I think that's a bad idea, I think it's a bad idea.

Peter Porebski 32:30

Yeah. How many times have we had to have we have intake calls where we have to level set with managers, hey, you know, we need to set up time to review resumes. What is your interview process? Do you know what the interview process is going to look like ahead of time as opposed to doing it on the fly? Which that does so that doesn't surprise me when we get stats up. Let's see here. 57% of people would drop out after a poor interview. That makes sense to me because that a lot of people are looking at that and they're saying, okay, this is indicative of a company that is sloppy. And if it's a poor interview process, it's going to be a poor process of working it. How do I know that when I get hired, they're going to accurately train me or they're going to give me the tools to succeed if they can't even get it together to do an interview process.

Pete Newsome 33:10

Yeah, that's very different to your point. You're basing that opinion on a live experience, interaction with the human, where that is much more meaningful than what made just the an unintentionally bad job description. No, no question about it. That's a great, that's a great point to make.

Peter Porebski 33:27

Um, in this thing, we had 50, and so it's a kind of mix between job descriptions and the actual interview process. They have 51% of people are skipping unclear job descriptions. Totally understand that because you don't really know what they're looking for. And that kind of goes feeds into the bad the loop that we've got where people apply to just every job because they assume that half the job description doesn't matter and maybe they aren't qualified for this job description. But how do you feel about that?

Pete Newsome 33:55

I would expect that number to be close to zero of people skipping unclear job descriptions. But this data says more than half. I don't buy that. I question that. I think actually highlight that.

Peter Porebski 34:07

The average candidate probably really does believe that a job description has been vetted in some way. You and I know that, like how little they can mean sometimes and how quickly they're generated by people who aren't even related. But does the average person who maybe say in their entire career they might be on the job market five times? How do they know that a job description is not written in stone? I think that's a huge that's a big misconception that I've come across from a lot of candidates just over the years of like them thinking the job description says this. Okay, the job description is just a word document that an HR person wrote.

Pete Newsome 34:42

So correct. And you mentioned Reddit earlier, and I spend time on Reddit too, other social media channels. It becomes very clear that most, I won't say most, many job seekers have very misguided perception of how things actually work. They think there's something devious going on, they think a company's bad because of their limited exposure that they may see in a job posting. And that's rarely representative of what led to that happening in the first place and what the experience would actually be like once you're engaged with the organization or the humans. I just no truly believe that most people are well intended, even if the delivery doesn't come across that way.

Peter Porebski 35:29

I try to believe yeah, I try to go with I don't attribute things to malice that can be explained with ignorance. And I think most people they're just that it's a mistake. They're just ignorant of it or they forget or something. Like I don't think people are generally like doing it to be malicious. I think it's just forgetting. And now that's not to excuse it. I still think that like a job seeker like should look at these these companies, and especially like I said, like in the interview process when you're actually part of it, like all of that kind of shows me the company culture. So that's something that I've the hiring managers I've talked to, make sure that this is a good experience for the candidates because you want them to give you their all. You need to show them that you're willing to invest in them as well.

How To Spot Real Jobs

Take-Home Tests And Interview Limits

Pete Newsome 36:11

Yeah, and the caveat here is we're not conflating sloppy work with scams that are out there. We though those are very different things, and we know how prevalent that is today. So when you see something that appears suspicious, or even if it doesn't, if it's a company you've never heard of before, look them up. Take the time to do a little research. It's not a lot of time, just a few minutes to see what kind of history the company has, make sure they've been around, look at their reviews, look at their digital presence, and make sure that they're legitimate because there are countless scams. I my phone, I get one every day at least a text, a call. Yesterday, the IRS called me and left a voicemail that absolutely wasn't the IRS. So we know how many scams are out there. There's one more stat from this that I want to mention that 59% of people avoid roles with unpaid assignments or excessive take-home work. That's become a trend that I see a lot of people complaining about too, that they don't like being tasked. They don't like having to spend time as part of the interview process. Yeah, in the interview process. So, what's your take on that? What do you think is realistic to ask a job seeker to do as part of the interview?

Peter Porebski 37:25

I think that it depends on the role. Like the one area where I've seen this being used, and I think it's completely reasonable, is say you're a software developer and you have a coding in a language, a coding test. Those are not, by the way, the ones that I've sent and have looked at are not insanely complex. They're maybe 20 minute long with a couple different problems to kind of get a general feel for if this person understands it or not. I think it can get excessive. And this kind of goes into one of the other stats, which is that people 45% are discouraged by long or complex application. I'll consider that, roll that in. 51% turn away from three plus interview rounds.

Pete Newsome 38:02

With that kind of all Yeah, that's along the same lines.

Peter Porebski 38:05

Yeah, like if it just a bad, and we've seen it with particularly larger companies that they'll get additional middlemen involved and they'll have complex VMS vendor management systems that require a lot of duplicate data entry. They'll put we all know that we've heard I upload my resume and then it asks me to input all the information that I just uploaded from my resume, like that type of thing. I can see where that would turn people off. And I definitely think that it's a it should be position by position. But if you're getting excessive take home work, I've heard the I've heard horror stories where people like I had to do a project over the weekend, the company didn't hire me, but they thanked me and used my work, my project work. I've never personally seen that. I that's crazy to me, and I definitely agree with that. That's I mean, Phil, like thank you for this. Is so see if you can do it's always programming.

Pete Newsome 38:57

Yeah, that's that okay. I would draw a hard line there.

Peter Porebski 39:00

If you're at yeah, a test or something like that. I don't think I think both sides need companies, should be cognizant of the fact that unless you are very far along in this interview processing, you're pretty sure and you're just confirming, don't be don't give every single person a very long, complex test unless you're just giving them false hope.

Pete Newsome 39:20

I think it's just a yeah, my my take on this is to be relative to the position that someone's or and you should just consider what's really needed. So if we and we've seen examples over the years, we've uh had clients ask for assignments. For we ask people to take a personality test. It's not an excessive amount of time. And I my personal take on this is that given the gravity of the situation where you're going to be working, if it's a full-time job, if it's a professional level job, being thorough on both sides is a good idea. And so I think candidates need as much information from the employer as the employer needs from candidates. So it has to be both ways. It's it never should just be one-sided. So if you're going to ask a candidate to spend time and effort doing something, make sure they understand why. And it it helps them also get a feel for whether it's the right, they're the right fit for the job.

Peter Porebski 40:18

Yeah, I think that if I've never heard of a person having an issue with it when the company feels like they're being upfront and and recognizing that this is extra work and all of that, I think that most candidates just want to be a pre, they just want that to be appreciated. That this is a we are taking you seriously. We may be asking you to do extra things, but it's because this is us, you are a serious contender. And if it's just it seems to be an issue when companies use it frivolously. Yeah.

Pete Newsome 40:46

David shared an article that I did not see about side hustles, that fewer people are taking them. And I'm looking at it now, and that's such a surprise to me that you don't hear about side hustles much. A lot of people have second jobs now. That there are more people with second jobs, unfortunately, because they need them. But we have seen that now that I've I'm thinking about it, that side hustle trend has gone away a little bit.

Peter Porebski 41:14

Yeah. And it seems like it's uh goes hand in hand, maybe with the uh the younger generation Gen Z predilection towards work-life balance and that they're like, I'm already spending all my time working a full-time job. Why do I want to work extra on the weekend to do whatever my side hustle is? And I have friends who who do they'll have a little shop, or they I have one who goes to a farmer's market and sells some crafts and stuff like that. So I guess all of that is considered a side hustle, but it's interesting to see that people seem to be maybe just bogged down in their full-time job right now, and they just don't have the energy or the desire. That's all I can think of.

Pete Newsome 41:51

The number is still high, though. According to this Lending Tree survey, it says that 33% have a side hustle. That seems alarmingly high to me.

Peter Porebski 41:59

One out of two. Well, it's like I said, I know a lot of people who do it. It's just, I guess, the I forget that side hustles can cover everything. You can that can be a couple things up per month to you working every weekend. So that's it's a very broad category.

Pete Newsome 42:14

Yeah, maybe we'll call it something different going forward, but I believe AI will create a lot of opportunities for individual businesses, entrepreneurs to do something by themselves that they wouldn't have previously been able to do. So whether we call that a side hustle or not, I think that is a trend that will increase in the next few years.

Peter Porebski 42:38

Yeah, I think so. And I think maybe that's some that's a way that people can hedge their bets a little bit against just wholly relying on one company, having something that you can fall back on is gives people peace of mind, I think.

Pete Newsome 42:51

Yeah, because we we talked about this earlier when we were discussing all the layoffs, and you said, what do you do? How do you prepare for what's coming? If the numbers are even remotely close to accurate of some of the forecasts, like the one today, where you know 20 to 30 percent of jobs that could be lost in the next two to five years, which is what the Verizon CEO said this week. Train yourself, don't rely on your company. Learn how to I don't know, reinvent yourself if necessary with day. And that's what exists right now. We also talk a lot about the education system today. That's not serving people well. What does serve everyone who chooses to take advantage of it very well is all the free information available right now from YouTube and now AI, you can teach yourself to do a lot of things. I think I is as afraid of as I am about the impact on jobs. Um almost equally enthusiastic and excited about just the opportunities that will unfold for so many people that previously weren't even a consideration.

Peter Porebski 43:57

Yep. Yep. I think that investing. In yourself and looking out for yourself first is definitely the right move there. You can learn anything. And like I said, like it a lot of these people that are starting these side hustles, they're doing it with the help of learning, learning on YouTube how to do something and then turning it into a side hustle. There's a lot of stuff out there you just have to, you have to be aware of what you can control. And if you're working at a big company and you can't control whether they're going to do layoffs or not, you can control whether you're ready to support yourself.

Job Data Wrap And Next Week

Pete Newsome 44:31

Yeah, absolutely. So was it a huge data week, Peter? Before we go, just a couple of numbers. ADP puts out their weekly tracking for private jobs, and that number went up. It's now five times what it was early in the year in January. So we're seeing a good trend there with job openings or new hires, payrolls expanding. That's good, at least in the private sector. But unemployment claims also trended up this week. So it's a bit of a contradiction there with the data.

Peter Porebski 45:00

Yeah, and I know healthcare was carrying a lot of those numbers too. That's no surprise. I think that'll continue to grow. Seeing drops in retail and manufacturing was not great. But overall, these numbers going up is hopefully the silver lining in the in all the layoffs we talked about earlier.

Pete Newsome 45:17

We'll see if it can keep up. So yeah, stay tuned on that one for sure. So that's it for today. So thanks if you've been with us this long. Appreciate it. And we will see you next week.

Peter Porebski 45:28

Thanks, everyone. Bye.