And I'm not going back, either. Reckon I can slowly liquidate assets for as long as I have left to live. To hell with all this shit, my farm is enough.
> However, in June the biggest plunge came from what is defined as “prime age” workers, or those between the ages of 25 and 54. That rate fell 0.6 percentage point to 83.3%, its lowest since December 2023.
It's great how two sources can tell a completely different story about the same numbers.
Prime age is meant to filter college kids and retirees which makes sense but it is likely hiding the minor crisis in hiring for college grads. But I agree it's not disastrous just a yellow flag. The 20 year bull market has minted a lot of millionaires amongst the upper middle class and a lot of them are retiring early.
55+ crushing it on the asset inflation mania they got at ~zero interest, the youngins left holding the bag of the inflationary cost renting out houses their seniors got negative real interest mortgages for.
I think you are grossly overestimating the number of people >55 years old who free willingly retire early because of having enough new worth. Already millenials' CVs are written off in recruitment pipelines.
> millenials' CVs are written off in recruitment pipelines
I think you've got something wrong here, "millennials" refers to people currently between 30 and 45 and are surely the least likely to be discriminated based on either age or inexperience.
Or they hit that sweet spot of being old enough to have commitments so they can't be a fresh grad slave and young enough to not have benefitted when the getting was good and easy and so they are discriminated against.
I suppose it’s in how you word it. I’ve given up on trying to get a job because there is no point in trying. I can’t afford to pay my rent, but I guess you could call that early retirement.
If you can stomach it, the seafood canning and fishing industry in Alaska will usually (IDK what the situation is this year) hire anyone off the street, work them 16 hours a day for several months, and give them "free housing." You'll get dumped back in Seattle in several months with at least $10k in your pocket.
If you are working 16 hours a day, you won't even go to your "free housing", you will sleep next to your workplace on a mat and then try and finish toilet/bath in office restroom in 1hour, so you can at-least get some restful hours of sleep before the next day.
A question that roughly 500,000 people in America find themselves asking. So far, the answer seems to be “in a pup tent in the woods behind Walmart”, because there’s not a ton of great options otherwise.
It's likely not even people retiring early, just demographics shifting up the ages. The youngest baby boomers are 61. The percentage of Americans over the age of 60 increased from 22.8% in 2020 to 25% in 2025. Also the younger cohorts moving into the labor force are smaller as well.
An aging population means 25-54 represent less workers and people "retiring" from the labor force before social security age is likely to be deeply negative for their finances into old age and not just a decision from the relative luxury of being able to select jobs with quick vesting pensions like in past decades.
If pension ages were going down over the years and the average worker were well vested by 55 then in that reality all would be fine.
"retired" at 25-30 is also pretty common, or at minimum self employed and fully sustainable while putting in only 10-20 hours a week usually for 2-3 days a week.
The money printing during COVID screwed everything up. Most of the capital was directly given to banks and businesses, fraudulently in many cases and unnecessarily in most, and everything pooled up into real estate and stocks so anyone who had already owned a large proportion of those became absurdly wealthy in the span of a couple years and everyone else effectively lost 20-30% of their income through inflation. The majority of all money was printed during COVID, no one voted for this to happen, no one bothered to even communicate how it was decided how much money would be printed and who would get it, and no retrospective has ever been done. It’s never been more clear that a small group of the wealthiest investors in the US run the show and the majority of people are wage slaves who had the ladder kicked out above them. Now we’re seeing an administration and elite class that is openly ransacking the country for whatever profits it can extract from a dying empire. I have no idea how this ever gets fixed.
> The capital was either directly given to businesses, fraudulently and unnecessarily in many cases
Especially concerning when a bunch of politicians were in on it, ensuring that the money went out willy-nilly and that $700+ billion in "loans" were turned into a straight up gift from the taxpayers.
Nobody paid those high tax rates. Everybody was writing off cars, home offices, hobbies, "business" dinners, and everything else.
The tax simplification that occurred in 1986 struck a bargain: We'll lower your tax rate, but we're not going to allow you to take all those BS deductions anymore. The effective tax rates barely budged.
An effective 94% tax rate is a huge drag on the economy, since it makes risk taking impossible to justify. You'd be stupid to start a business or invest in a startup at that rate. There's no surer way to throw half your work force out of work.
The current regime and the previous regime both reported extremely low unemployment outside of the pandemic but don't let your partisan bigotry get in the way of facts. You are the reason why the uniparty is able to do this, as you will always be willingly blind to it as long as it has the right color coating on it. You are personally at fault.
Today I read about Accenture Norway taking in 56 summer internship students from over...1600 applicants. Record year, they reported.
Previously I imagined only the top-top tier firms could enjoy low single-digit acceptance rate, but here we have Accenture crushing it. Competition must be tough.
(But for what I know, could be that AI has made it easier for people to spam everyone with applications)
My guess is that it's simultaneously easy for a lot of companies to do automated filtering and for candidates to do a lot of automated applications in a way that's easier than sending out a bunch of envelopes. Which makes it harder for candidates who don't have either networks or impressive credentials.
On the other side, I notice it's so much easier to apply for a job today that people apply for thousands of jobs. When I graduated from college I applied at 70 different places, and my peer group thought that was a crazy high number.
When I was graduating from grad school I certainly sent many dozens of letters. Which I think was pretty typical. When I went to another grad school a few years later, I probably traveled to a good dozen interviews in addition to a whole bunch of other letters.
It was never AI, it’s not “recession”, it’s not xyz, it’s simply since covid the wealth distribution got worse, further. It’s why you see the very few are with an exponential networth increase while the majority are suffering, at the same time, those who hold that networth are pulling all sort of shenanigans to keep the market alive and far from crashing for as long as possible, but it’s eminent and it will happen soon, the only exception is starting a major war to meat grind all these young men otherwise they will revolt for sure.
Take an hour off at 2-3pm in any major US city and look at how many people are just milling about. Mostly shopping. There are a lot of people in the US that are not working.
Pre-2008 retail was quiet in the middle of the day, now it booms. I can’t comment on if this is a good or bad thing, but I am surprised at how many people are causally walking their dog as I am rushing to compete an essential errand and get back to work.
I think this is going to be a much more common sight in most major western economies - many of them have a rapidly growing aged retired population and a declining young working segment etc.
The effects of this change are definitely being felt, good and bad, in many countries already.
Asking because I'm genuinely curious myself, how much of this is unemployment vs the fact that so many more people work from home now compared to pre-2008? Many of those that WFH work a more flexible schedule and probably structure their days a lot differently than 20+ years ago.
I used to encounter maybe one person who did not have a head of gray hair, i.e. obviously retired, in a variety of mid peninsula parks in Silicon Valley on weekdays pre covid during the work day and nowadays I run into a dozen or more in a typical half day outing on a week day and this trend definitely started during pandemic. But I don’t know if it’s unemployment or WFH now.
You realize not everyone works a normal 9 to 5 right, you honestly think every person shopping are unemployed? Are tech workers this deeply out of touch with normal people?
Heh. I had a manual labor job once where I got off work at 4:00. A quick beer after work becomes "I hope I still have beer in the fridge", since in California you can't buy one until 6:00.
I don't think they implied that. They just noticed what they say is a large increase in 9 to 5 shopping compared to pre-2008 and are speculating that this increase is because more people now are out of the labor force.
We live in a capitalist society. This means we prioritize making money via capital rather than through labor. It looks like we just got what we've asked for. I'm not sure what the problem is.
If you're playing labor in a capitalist society, you're playing a losing strategy.
I've basically given up. It currently takes me about 150-200 applications to get a single interview. I've had a few processes go all the way through only to be rejected, and in each case I'm not sure if they ever actually hired anyone at all.
At this point I apply to the random job here and there if it overlaps almost 1:1 with my background and I'm interested in the company, but otherwise pretty much everything goes nowhere and it's bad for my mental health. I think a lot of others are at that point as well.
Networking turned from a suggestion into being the only way of getting hired. I don't need a job, but I've gotten several emails from recommendations and I didn't have any 3 years ago or so, maybe an odd one here and there.
I think getting scouted is also one of the better ways of getting hired by having an active github profile with at least one popular open-source project even if it is AI slop.
As someone who's looking for a job, this is what I fear. How does one distinguish themselves from the thousands of other people who say "Claude, write a cover letter for this company, make no mistakes", and their cover letter has the same tone as every other cover letter?
Perhaps the old recommendation of "Deliver a resume in person, shake their hand" that many of us younguns have rolled our eyes at will actually come back?? How else to prove your humanity to the hiring manager?
Tech WAS such a great career now it's total crap! The hey day of tech jobs when you received tons of prospective jobs offers via Linkedin feels like that's drying up (tho it could be my age which is not listed anywhere on Linkedin). From 2012 up until Spring 2025 each month I'd receive 3 to 6 recruiters offering a new UX Research, Design and or Front End Development job. Not anymore and now these jobs you are no competing with 100s to 1000s for just one job and if you are lucky enough to get an interview you have to go through 5 to 12 interviews LOL. Im laughing even more as i vibe code a project in which my previous projects i hired some like a back-end developer or two. Nope I can do it all myself and save money like so many businesses.
Overall I can't imagine the killing of jobs where not many worked to save money (?) and now AI definitely reducing head count futher is a good thing for economy. An economy where these jobs let you buy nice single homes in nice areas wherever.
For me I havent left the job market but it's a huge joke now for techies and soon will be for a lot workers who use a computer to complete their work tasks. In a short or not so short time the computers (agents) will be doing a lot of that work to all of it.
The labor shortage crisis has been going for over 200 years now, yet nobody can name a company that has died or otherwise suffered negative consequences as a result of it.
Based on this exact scenario after 25 years in the tech industry, here are a few things you can do:
Deplete your retirement savings, have daily panic attacks, add roommates, stop eating healthy, give pets away, stop taking medications, downgrade car, find and recycle aluminum, use coupons, go to several grocery stores to capture distinct loss leaders, drive only when necessary, stop volunteering, visit crisis centers, cancel all subscriptions, wear clothes and shoes until they fall apart, learn to do your own plumbing, stop going to meetups unless they have free food, have trouble both waking up and going to sleep, stop reading the news, buy in bulk, check the thrift store first, stop donating at checkout, cut your own hair, have more panic attacks, air dry your clothes, stop playing games, stop exercising, sell off your sentimental items, buy generic products, juggle interest rate deals, ask for discounts on imperfect items, usenet/bittorrent, curse at the "gifted" system, drink only water, look around and in dumpsters, pick up that penny, and make a mental note about which bridges have the best living conditions.
I just genuinely don't believe this is a thing that happens. Yes if you expect 150k then it is a thing that happens, but... there is always a job somewhere. You can join the military, become a ditch digger, fisherman, whatever.
Not exactly on top of it but I had a related conversation the other day.
People at my work were talking poor of gen z and how they are bulk of neets and how they are lame and etc.
There is always some cringe in different generations apart, but even being older, I can empathise with them.
You have zero forecast to buy a home for yourself, to buy a car, to even pay for a university. Whatever they want to do, they will be sucked dry, even if it is a video game.
The f our generation is doing. We are being evil towards the elderly and the young.
We blame the rich, the game, the system. All of them we power of our utmost selfishness, transfering the guilty for someone like we couldn't do anything about it.
Everything outside of the AI data centre build-out is not growing. And the hyperscalers are having to cut costs to help pay for those datacentres full of GPUs.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 79.3 ms ] threadOriginal headline: "Job seekers giving up: Labor force participation rate falls to lowest in 50 years, outside of the Covid era"
And here is one for 55+yo: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11324230
All is fine
It's great how two sources can tell a completely different story about the same numbers.
I think you've got something wrong here, "millennials" refers to people currently between 30 and 45 and are surely the least likely to be discriminated based on either age or inexperience.
This guarantees you will only get people who are young or childless or single
https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...
I know many ex-colleagues who have been retired early -- they face age discrimination and cannot find work.
An aging population means 25-54 represent less workers and people "retiring" from the labor force before social security age is likely to be deeply negative for their finances into old age and not just a decision from the relative luxury of being able to select jobs with quick vesting pensions like in past decades.
If pension ages were going down over the years and the average worker were well vested by 55 then in that reality all would be fine.
Especially concerning when a bunch of politicians were in on it, ensuring that the money went out willy-nilly and that $700+ billion in "loans" were turned into a straight up gift from the taxpayers.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/cre...
https://fortune.com/2020/07/08/ppp-loan-recipients-members-o...
The tax simplification that occurred in 1986 struck a bargain: We'll lower your tax rate, but we're not going to allow you to take all those BS deductions anymore. The effective tax rates barely budged.
An effective 94% tax rate is a huge drag on the economy, since it makes risk taking impossible to justify. You'd be stupid to start a business or invest in a startup at that rate. There's no surer way to throw half your work force out of work.
What we've done to other countries has finally turned inwards. It was just a matter of time.
Previously I imagined only the top-top tier firms could enjoy low single-digit acceptance rate, but here we have Accenture crushing it. Competition must be tough.
(But for what I know, could be that AI has made it easier for people to spam everyone with applications)
I know this is as real as "a matter of fact" but it's so stupid.
Or they will start electing people like Trump/Mamdani to shake the system on both sides
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
Pre-2008 retail was quiet in the middle of the day, now it booms. I can’t comment on if this is a good or bad thing, but I am surprised at how many people are causally walking their dog as I am rushing to compete an essential errand and get back to work.
The effects of this change are definitely being felt, good and bad, in many countries already.
I work 8 AM - noon, 3 PM - 2 AM.
I don't have an office and I've never met most of my coworkers.
At the gas stations I worked at, the shifts were 7AM-3PM, 3PM-11PM, and 11PM-7AM.
I used to do a lot of things at abnormal times. What does a quick beer after work look like when you're done at 7AM?
I also don't know many unemployed people cruising around malls looking for ways to spend money.
Why are we shocked that tech workers also share deeply antihuman views like those of their masters?
Also if you live in a tourist destination like a major city there's going to be lots of people with time off walking around everywhere.
If you're playing labor in a capitalist society, you're playing a losing strategy.
At this point I apply to the random job here and there if it overlaps almost 1:1 with my background and I'm interested in the company, but otherwise pretty much everything goes nowhere and it's bad for my mental health. I think a lot of others are at that point as well.
They are being inundated with thousands of AI slop applications each week.
Hiring has devolved to word of mouth recommendations.
Networking turned from a suggestion into being the only way of getting hired. I don't need a job, but I've gotten several emails from recommendations and I didn't have any 3 years ago or so, maybe an odd one here and there.
I think getting scouted is also one of the better ways of getting hired by having an active github profile with at least one popular open-source project even if it is AI slop.
The real candidate has already been recommended by someone trusted on the team and is going through a much shortened version of the same process.
"Council staff dubbed the ‘Pink Ops’ allegedly promoted friends, NSW anti-corruption watchdog hears"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/11/counc...
The issues in this thread will be addressed with what I am building and you will all thank me one day.
that may be an evolution, not a devolution
Overall I can't imagine the killing of jobs where not many worked to save money (?) and now AI definitely reducing head count futher is a good thing for economy. An economy where these jobs let you buy nice single homes in nice areas wherever.
For me I havent left the job market but it's a huge joke now for techies and soon will be for a lot workers who use a computer to complete their work tasks. In a short or not so short time the computers (agents) will be doing a lot of that work to all of it.
Deplete your retirement savings, have daily panic attacks, add roommates, stop eating healthy, give pets away, stop taking medications, downgrade car, find and recycle aluminum, use coupons, go to several grocery stores to capture distinct loss leaders, drive only when necessary, stop volunteering, visit crisis centers, cancel all subscriptions, wear clothes and shoes until they fall apart, learn to do your own plumbing, stop going to meetups unless they have free food, have trouble both waking up and going to sleep, stop reading the news, buy in bulk, check the thrift store first, stop donating at checkout, cut your own hair, have more panic attacks, air dry your clothes, stop playing games, stop exercising, sell off your sentimental items, buy generic products, juggle interest rate deals, ask for discounts on imperfect items, usenet/bittorrent, curse at the "gifted" system, drink only water, look around and in dumpsters, pick up that penny, and make a mental note about which bridges have the best living conditions.
People at my work were talking poor of gen z and how they are bulk of neets and how they are lame and etc.
There is always some cringe in different generations apart, but even being older, I can empathise with them. You have zero forecast to buy a home for yourself, to buy a car, to even pay for a university. Whatever they want to do, they will be sucked dry, even if it is a video game.
The f our generation is doing. We are being evil towards the elderly and the young. We blame the rich, the game, the system. All of them we power of our utmost selfishness, transfering the guilty for someone like we couldn't do anything about it.
Civic engagement across the U.S. is at historic lows. We are giving up social society for digital screens these days.
Seeing a lot of age "bias" * in recent job cuts and comments by CFOs.
* Which may be rational, if unfair, if experience counts for less with the advent of the LLM coder.