I’ll search for reputable sources on the 2025 job market and job seeker experiences.Perfect! I’ve gathered comprehensive data from reputable sources. Let me put this together in your authentic, direct voice—like how you talk about systems and experiences on your site.

---

The 2025 Job Market Is Brutal—Here’s What the Data Actually Says

Look, if you’re job searching right now and it feels impossibly hard, you’re not imagining it. The numbers back up what you’re experiencing.

The job search is taking longer than ever. The average time to find a job is now about six months—and that’s if you even land one at all. About 20% of job seekers have been searching for at least 10 to 12 months or longer, with most people spending 4-6 months on the hunt. And here’s the kicker: the median time to first offer has jumped 22% since April, now taking a median of 68.5 days.

The market itself is frozen. Job openings in October 2025 fell to the lowest level since February 2021, according to Indeed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows hiring rates in August 2025 fell to a prepandemic low of 3.5 percent— rates not seen since January 2011. Translation? Companies aren’t hiring, even when they say they need people.

People are literally giving up. In September 2025, 537,000 people left the labor force and stopped applying to jobs because they believed that no work was available—up 105,000 people, or by 20 percent, from the year prior. That’s not laziness. That’s exhaustion after hitting a brick wall over and over.

The application black hole is real. While the most common path to a job offer involves submitting between 10 and 20 applications, 14.3% of users need to submit over 100 applications before receiving an offer. And even when you’re putting in that kind of volume, only 2% of applications make it past the first round, and less than 1% of job applicants receive a job offer after submitting their résumé.

Ghosting is epidemic-level. Half of job seekers said they’ve been ghosted by employers, according to Remote.co’s survey. You’re not alone if you’ve sailed through multiple rounds only to hear… nothing. Ever. 80% of job-seekers would not consider applying to a role at the same company that did not update them on the status of their application, but companies keep doing it anyway.

Long-term unemployment is climbing. The share of unemployed Americans who are long-term unemployed — meaning they’ve been out of work for more than six months — has increased to nearly 25% from 21.6% since July 2024. For some groups, it’s even worse. Black women spent 18.5 weeks unemployed in September 2025, 7.5 weeks more than their 2024 median weeks unemployed.

The systems are working against you. Between 75% of qualified candidates facing rejection by ATS due to keyword mismatches or failure to meet specific criteria and 81% of recruiters admitting their employer posts “ghost jobs” that either don’t exist or are already filled, the deck is stacked. You’re not paranoid—the game really is rigged.

This isn’t about people not trying hard enough. This is a broken system where the rules have changed but nobody told the job seekers.

If you’re in this right now, feeling like you’re screaming into the void—I see you. The data proves you’re not crazy. The market is that bad.

But Here’s What They’re Not Telling You

The system is broken, yes—but you’re not.

Here’s what the data also shows: 84% of hiring managers are prepared to offer higher pay to candidates with specialized skills, and demand for skilled talent remains robust in fields such as finance and accounting, human resources, technology, legal, and marketing and creative. Companies are still hiring—they’re just being pickier about it. And while the average might be six months, that’s just an average. The most common path to success involves submitting between 10 and 20 applications—not hundreds. That means targeted, strategic applications are still working for a lot of people.

Every person who landed a job this year did it in this market. Every single one of them faced the same broken ATS systems, the same ghosting, the same discouragement. And they made it through anyway—not because they were lucky, but because they kept refining their approach until something stuck. You’ve survived worse than a tough job market. You’ve built systems, solved problems nobody else could figure out, and created value in places where it didn’t exist before. Those skills don’t disappear just because some algorithm can’t read a resume properly. The market will shift. It always does. And when it does, the people who kept showing up, kept learning, kept adapting? They’re the ones who’ll be ready.

And the skills and adaptability you’ll learn along the way will serve you for years to come.