Month: August 2025

• July’s jobs report shows a hiring slowdown, and that May and June figures were worse than previously thought.
• Many job seekers have been feeling dismal about the job market prior to the summer hiring slowdown.
• An Indeed Hiring Lab director said that the report “reinforced” feelings of a slowing labor market.

The latest job report confirms what many job seekers have been feeling: The market really is that bad.

For those who have been applying to thousands of jobs or slogging through grueling interview rounds only to get passed over, the numbers aren’t likely surprising.

“Things have ebbed and flowed,” Stephanie O’Neill, a job seeker based in Los Angeles who has been on the job hunt for 10 months, told Business Insider. “A couple months ago, it seemed like it was picking up, but it appears to be slowing down again.”

The July jobs report revealed that 73,000 jobs were added in July, less than the expected 106,000. The unemployment rate also increased to 4.2%, a slight increase from 4.1% in June.

Another standout detail from the report was the “larger than normal” revisions to May and June’s job growth — meaning the earlier months were worse than previously thought.

Job growth was hotter a couple of years ago when there was a lot more churn during the Great Resignation. The job market has slowed down in recent years, adding to job seekers’ struggles.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed to Business Insider that its commissioner was terminated on Friday following criticism from President Donald Trump who said the data was a “major mistake” and “The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP.'”

A skills mismatch

Laura Ullrich, the director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told BI that the revisions “reinforced” her thinking over the last few months that the labor market is softening “considerably.”

“We have a quite lopsided jobs market in terms of the jobs that are available and the skills that people have for work,” Ullrich said.

Ullrich pointed to the healthcare and social assistance sector as an example. While the sector has been adding many jobs, many of those positions require specialized skill sets, education, or training.

That disconnect is something 49-year-old Damon Duncan has experienced since 2021, when he was laid off from a sales engineering role. He said he’s been “underemployed” since, or doing jobs that don’t fit his skill set. Duncan’s now working in a cold-calling sales role with colleagues who graduated from college last year, he said.

“This has been a continuous battle for almost four years,” Duncan, who’s applied to thousands of roles, told BI.

O’Neill said she applied to around 512 positions and landed about 20 interviews, mostly from referrals. Despite working in tech for over two decades, she said she’s been considering alternative, non-corporate career paths like teaching.

Job seeker struggles didn’t start this summer

While the latest data validates how job seekers have been feeling, for many, it’s been a challenging market for a while.

Job openings have slowed from over 12 million in March 2022 to a much cooler 7.4 million as of June. Quits have also slowed from its March 2022 peak during the Great Resignation as people are changing jobs less in a job market with fewer hires.

Joseph Leemon, a job seeker based in Michigan, said he’s been searching for a job for nearly three years. He’s applied to around 2,000 roles and he’s only had four interview requests.

“I’m beginning to think that something is really amiss,” Leemon told Business Insider. “Because I am not one that is trying to apply for CEO, C-suite type jobs for hundreds of thousand dollars. I am looking for mostly customer support, operations.”

Another job seeker, Paul Lambert, was recently laid off from an IT support managerial role. In his two months on the job market, he said he’s applied to about 100 jobs since and has only had three interviews.

“It’s definitely been not easy to even be seen in this market,” Lambert told Business Insider.

Despite the challenges, Lambert said his job hunt so far isn’t drastically different than what he experienced after being laid off in 2023. Lambert said he had to take a low-paying job about four months into his job search at the time to take care of his family. He said it took over a year to find a job that matched what he was looking for.

Lambert said he feels like once the tariff uncertainty fades, the market will adjust. However, he said he also feels concerned about companies pausing on hiring new employees once Q4 approaches.

“That’s my big concern,” Lambert said. “Am I going to be able to land employment before Q4 when budgets have been spent and a lot of people really aren’t hiring?”

• My mom and I took our first summer vacation to Lake Arrowhead in 1995.
• We loved it so much, we’ve gone back every summer since then.
• Going on the same vacation is low-stress and budget-friendly, and now, my kids come, too.

Every year for the last 30 years, my mom and I have taken the same summer vacation. We stay in the same hotel, eat at the same pizza joint, and ski at the same waterskiing school. It’s like Groundhog Day, but repeating one warm, sunny weekend every August.

This tradition began when I was 4. I was starting preschool, and my mom wanted to plan a mini getaway for the last weekend of summer. She booked a room in Lake Arrowhead, a small mountain town about an hour from our suburban home in California.

We explored the tiny lakeside village, jumped in the pool, and made s’mores at the beach until my hands and face were covered with chocolate. The trip was so fun that we decided to do the same thing the following summer. And the one after that, too — in fact, we never stopped.

It takes the stress out of planning

When we tell people we take the same trip every year, we get varying reactions. My friends have asked why we didn’t spend that time going somewhere new. “What about Yosemite? Or the Grand Canyon?” I’d argue that people with summer houses and timeshares went to the same place year after year; why couldn’t we?

After all, there are advantages to our trip. It saves time and money — not only is it close, but we don’t waste money trying things out that we may not like. And it serves as a family tradition that my mom and I look forward to every year.

Plus, going to the same vacation spot can be soothing. For me, going to Lake Arrowhead every year is like re-watching a favorite TV show: it’s fun, easy, and I know what to expect. A 2024 study found that 19% of US adults say planning a trip is “very stressful.” That number bumps up to 26% for those traveling with kids.

And I believe it. When my mom and I did take other trips throughout my childhood, like the winter we went to New York or our vacation to Hawaii, she was stressed researching activities and restaurants in the weeks leading up.

But in preparation for our Lake Arrowhead weekends, she simply calls the hotel and books it. No additional work, and no stress.

While seeing new places is great, even as an adult, whenever I go to a new city, seeing new sights and eating new foods, I come back feeling like I need a vacation from my vacation. But when I come back from my annual Lake Arrowhead trip, I feel relaxed, refreshed, and ready to get back to life.

It’s budget-friendly

Last summer, when I checked into the hotel for our annual trip, the woman at the front desk asked if I wanted to buy a $30 s’mores kit, and I, of course, politely declined. We always stop in at the same local grocery store when we drive in and pick up the same s’mores fixings, snacks, and drinks. I’ve never done this at other vacation spots, but Lake Arrowhead feels like home, so picking up groceries feels natural. It’s part of the tradition.

Right now, especially, being cost-efficient is important. Our annual trip is filled with small savings here and there because we know what to expect. We know which hotel is the best value and which meals will make our mouths water without overspending. And we rarely buy souvenirs because how many magnets that say “Lake Arrowhead” do we really need?

It’s hard to calculate exactly how much we save every year, but the few hundred dollars we spend on the outing is a fraction of what I’d spend on any other vacation.

Our tradition brings us closer together

When I was a kid, I loved going to Lake Arrowhead because I liked the activities we did there: getting up early to waterski, feeding the ducks, and buying giant cones of bubblegum ice cream.

But as I grew, I appreciated the trip for so much more. As my life got busy with work, college, and then grad school, I found myself counting the weeks until our summer getaway. There was no better way to forget about the stresses of adulting than to go to an ever-unchanging pizza parlor with my mom and stuff myself with the same garlic bread I’d been loving since kindergarten.

I know it means a lot to my mom, too. She always starts packing her bag weeks before, and once we get there, she’s always pointing out shops or landmarks that remind her of a memory from when I was young: The toy shop where I used to pick out arts and crafts kits, the playground where I used to swing for hours.

As we enter our third decade of trips, I’m now a parent myself, so my mom and I bring my kids on the adventure. We still stay in the same hotel, eat at the same restaurants. But now, when we make s’mores on the beach, it’s my kids’ hands and faces that are covered with chocolate.

People always say they’re going to return to their favorite vacation spot, but rarely do. Meanwhile, we’ve made a tradition of going to the same place for the last 30 years, and plan to continue for at least 30 more.