Jeanne Whalen

Rachel, you spend a lot of time talking with employees.

How would you say generally they're feeling?

Say more about that growing distrust that you mentioned.

Yeah, I mean, it's like things are...

awful for workers right now.

Again, you know, the unemployment rate isn't terrible, but when you compare it to a few years ago when we were all, where the whole market had job offers left and right, where people were getting raises left and right, where everybody was moving and moving up, and things look very different now.

They've come back down more to earth and are kind of drifting more in a slightly more worrying direction.

Direction, just as Risha was saying, it's a vibes thing in the sense that people are comparing things to how it was a few years ago when the job market was on fire.

During the great resignation when it seemed like everybody was like, I'm out of here.

And then companies were just fighting over the remaining workers.

Rachel, how is the job market looking for new grads?

out of college, out of high school.

Yeah, and like the experience of looking now, I think is also discouraging them so much more than would have been the case five years ago.

It's not just that there are fewer jobs out there for them to apply for.

It's that a lot of the process has been automated.

And so I wrote recently about some young people who are...

experiencing what's called a one-way interview, which I had never heard of, but apparently... Me either.

The company will, you as the applicant, talk to a screen, you talk to a computer that is showing you questions and writing and you answer and record your answers, but there's no human on the other side of the interaction.

But, like, does somebody on the other side watch the video or does, like, AI summarize it and say, this person had great answers?

Good question.