Kristen Schwab

We're not using her full name because she's concerned it could hurt her job prospects.

She blocks out time for her search, spending up to four hours on job boards every day.

They make it very easy to apply for jobs on there.

You can just upload your resume and quick apply.

But I think with that, these companies probably see a lot of people applying that way, which makes it hard to sift through on their end.

She's applied for about 30 positions, but hasn't landed an interview.

It feels like a cycle to me where I feel depressed because I don't have a job.

And then I go and apply to some things and then not hear back.

And then it just starts over like, oh, I'm depressed because I don't have a job.

Oh, I didn't hear back from them.

And then it just kind of repeats itself.

Bella is caught up in a cooling job market where employers aren't laying many workers off, but they're not hiring new ones either.

Economist Guy Berger is a senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute.

Who is vulnerable to re-hiring people that are coming into the workforce for the first time?

Whether they're high school graduates in their late teens or associate degree completers in their very early 20s or college grads.

And these groups have really gotten hammered.

Berger says it's possible AI is taking some of these entry-level jobs.

But he thinks for the most part, employers are just sitting tight.

This just hits people that need a job more than people that already have a job.

And who needs a job almost more than anybody else?