The U.S. job market is becoming more difficult to navigate, especially for younger workers and recent graduates, and commentary YouTuber Zac Rios says the latest wave of layoffs, disappearing entry-level roles and heavy competition may only be the beginning.
In a recent video, Rios reacted to a series of TikToks from job seekers, recruiters and workers who described sending out hundreds of applications, getting rejected from basic positions, seeing jobs reposted immediately after rejection emails and watching artificial intelligence replace work that once seemed relatively secure.
His conclusion was simple: people who already have a job should be extremely cautious about leaving it without another offer firmly lined up.
Job Seekers Say Even Basic Positions Are Hard To Get
Rios opened with a clip claiming the economy had lost 23,000 jobs in the previous month when economists had expected an increase of 83,000, a gap of more than 100,000 jobs.
The same speaker said labor-force participation had fallen to a five-year low and that previous months had also been revised downward, which Rios took as another sign that companies were cutting workers without replacing them.
He then highlighted comments from people who said they were being rejected from Walmart, Lowe’s and even cashier positions at Goodwill.
One job seeker said they had applied to roughly 300 jobs over five months, repeatedly changed and tailored their resume, and received only two interviews.
Another person said they had been unemployed for nine months and had even started applying for janitorial work just to see whether anyone would respond.
The frustration here is understandable because the old advice to simply “apply everywhere” starts to feel meaningless when applicants are already doing exactly that and still hearing nothing back.
Entry-Level Jobs Are Becoming A Major Bottleneck
Rios said one of the biggest warning signs is the disappearance of entry-level work.
In a clip he discussed, a commentator cited figures claiming entry-level openings had fallen sharply over the previous four years and that inexperienced candidates were now welcomed in only a tiny share of job postings.
Rios connected that trend to recent college graduates who may have degrees but cannot get the first job needed to build experience.
One person in the video said they had a degree yet could not find anything paying more than $25 an hour, while another described interviewing for a leadership-heavy role that paid only $38,000 a year despite involving more responsibility than their current $50,000 position.
That kind of mismatch creates a strange market where employers still want skills, credentials and experience, but may not be willing to pay enough to make the added responsibility worthwhile.
Rios also pushed back on the common suggestion that everyone struggling should simply enter a trade.
He said trades such as electrical work, plumbing, HVAC, carpentry and nursing can still be valuable paths, but argued that flooding any one field with workers can eventually create the same problem seen in computer science.
Computer Science Is No Longer Seen As A Safe Bet
One recent computer science graduate in the video said he had applied to more than 150 software-engineering positions and believed AI was making entry-level jobs even harder to find.
He said he had started university in 2022 believing software engineering was a secure career, but now felt he might need to change direction entirely.
Rios said that is especially painful for people who took on large student loans based on the promise that a technical degree would lead to stable employment.
He also noted that the situation is not completely one-sided.
Some companies have reportedly found that AI did not create the productivity gains they expected and have reconsidered layoffs, while other forms of automation continue advancing rapidly.
Rios showed examples including an unmanned robotic coffee shop in Beijing, autonomous tractor-trailers and humanoid home-cleaning robots.
His concern was that businesses do not necessarily need automation to be perfect.
If it becomes cheaper and reliable enough, he argued, companies will have a strong financial incentive to use it.
Recruiters Are Seeing Hundreds Of Qualified Applicants
Perhaps one of the strongest examples came from a recruiter working in the life-sciences industry.
She said she posted a remote data scientist position on LinkedIn with geographic restrictions and screening questions, then returned to find more than 600 active applications.
According to her, every applicant she reviewed appeared qualified.
“I have to go through and reject over 600 people for a job that these people probably well deserve,” she said, adding that she had never seen anything like it in 11 years of recruiting.
That helps explain why job seekers can do everything correctly and still receive an automated rejection.
The problem may not always be that the applicant lacks qualifications; sometimes there are simply hundreds of other people with nearly identical credentials competing for one opening.
Rios also pointed out that applicants are increasingly using AI to submit applications while companies use AI to screen them, creating a process in which enormous volumes of applications may never receive meaningful human attention.
Job Listings Are Creating More Frustration
Another TikTok featured a woman who said she received a rejection notice saying a position had been filled, only to see the exact same opening reposted less than 24 hours later.
She questioned how someone could have been hired and apparently replaced so quickly.
Rios said there could be several explanations.
Perhaps the company did not like any of the candidates, or perhaps the listing was never tied to an immediate opening at all.
He raised the possibility of so-called ghost jobs, postings that remain online despite a company having little or no intention of hiring immediately.
Whatever the cause, these experiences can make applicants feel that the process itself is no longer transparent.
Rios said the result is a growing loss of loyalty on both sides, with workers increasingly skeptical of companies that expect commitment while providing little security in return.
Rios Warns Workers Not To Quit Without A Plan
One woman in the video summed up the mood by warning viewers not to leave their current jobs casually.
She said a friend’s cloud-engineering opening received about 10,000 applications within an hour, with many of the applicants appearing qualified.
Rios agreed strongly with her warning.
Even workers with useful degrees and experience may discover that replacing a job takes far longer than expected.
He also questioned the long-term value of relying on bartending, driving or gig work as a fallback, particularly when those jobs can involve unstable income, high expenses or heavy physical demands.
That does not make temporary work useless, but it does make the idea of walking away from stable employment without another plan considerably riskier than it might have been a few years ago.
College Graduates Are Questioning The Old Formula
Rios closed by reacting to another clip encouraging students to choose prestigious universities even if that meant taking on more debt.
He strongly disagreed.
From his perspective, there is little value in borrowing huge sums primarily for the status of a well-known school if graduates from elite universities are also struggling to find work.
He said he has seen examples of graduates from schools such as Yale, Harvard and Princeton facing many of the same difficulties as everyone else.
That does not mean education has no value, but the old formula of degree, entry-level job, steady career progression and financial stability appears much less reliable than it once did.
Across all the clips Rios reviewed, the recurring theme was not simply that people dislike working or refuse available jobs.
It was that applicants are competing harder for fewer openings, entry-level positions are disappearing, technology is changing the kind of work companies need, and even qualified workers can spend months trying to get through the door.
For Rios, that is why the safest advice right now is also the least exciting: keep the job you already have until you know exactly where you are going next.
A former park ranger and wildlife conservationist, Lisa’s passion for survival started with her deep connection to nature. Raised on a small farm in northern Wisconsin, she learned how to grow her own food, raise livestock, and live off the land. Lisa is our dedicated Second Amendment news writer and also focuses on homesteading, natural remedies, and survival strategies. Lisa aims to help others live more sustainably and prepare for the unexpected.
