A message pops into your LinkedIn inbox encouraging you to apply for a job, but the pay on offer is considerably less than the qualifications it demands. What do you do?
This happened to one 28-year-old resident of the Washington area, who posted their experience on TikTok. The point of the post, calbinogenome told Newsweek, was not about how low the salary was being offered by the employer but to point out the challenge Gen Z and millennials are facing.
"A recruiter reached out to me asking me to apply for this job about a month ago and here are the requirements—first of all, a bachelor's degree, preferably a master's degree in biochemistry. Second, five years experience in a field that has existed for about 12 years at the moment, experience programming in Python in a professional environment, experience with SQL servers and most importantly the ability to travel both domestically and internationally...two weeks of the year," calbinogenome said to his nearly 30,000 followers.
"How much do you think is being offered for this international job that is posted," they asked. "it's $24 an hour. Not even salaried, $24 an hour. $48,000 a year for this job."
In a follow-up interview with Newsweek, calbinogenome said the role was for a Quality Specialist in Biotech in the Seattle area and said they did not name the employer because they were not trying to shame them.
calbinogenome speculated that the job may have not been serious and they ended up not applying.
"I didn't respond at all. I think with a lot of these jobs they're not serious jobs where they are actually expecting people to apply. I think they're jobs that are being posted simply to give the company the appearance of not shrinking or downsizing their operation," calbinogenome told Newsweek in a phone interview.
"There is a lot of sawdust in the job market at the moment, a lot of empty fluff," calbinogenome said. "The jobs that are being offered aren't either worth the requirements that they're asking for or the requirements are too high so we don't qualify. I think it's one of those many walls that I think Gen Z and millennials in the workforce are kind of getting pressed between."
They added: "It's a bit discouraging for people who are trying to be serious about their careers right now because we're always looking for the next step and right now I think a lot of the next steps are being obfuscated by all of this bloat of ghost jobs."
calbinogenome said in their video that they wanted to keep their details vague, so they don't get doxed.
What experts think
In October, employers added 150,000 jobs, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed, a sign some analysts say shows that the hot labor market may be cooling. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent, the data showed, from the September 3.8 percent figure, with some evidence of layoffs seen in the economy, particularly in the information and financial services sectors.
Newsweek reached out to labor economists to get a sense of what calbinogenome's experience says about the jobs market right now.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told Newsweek the labor market is expanding by about 280,000 workers a month at the moment and turnover has stabilized, which has in turn relieved pressure on companies to hire immediately.
"So they can afford to post jobs and set the pay fairly low to start, in case they're lucky and find a great hire at a cost they can comfortably stomach," Pollak said. "They might later raise the advertised pay if they do not receive the quantity or quality of applications they had initially hoped for."
Pollak alluded that research has shown a recent tendency to upskill, a phenomenon where employers opportunistically raise requirements or reduce pay offers when labor market conditions slacken.
"I think that likely explains what those candidates are seeing. Labor market conditions have weakened particularly significantly in tech and the media," Pollack pointed out.
Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Newsweek sometimes employers offer pay based on how available prospective candidates there are for those positions. For context, Terrazas told Newsweek that the Seattle metro biotech industry salaries were up 5 percent between 2022 and 2023 to an average of $108,400, according to Glassdoor data. Entry-level roles for three years or less of relevant job experience salaries were up slightly less, about 3.8 percent to an average of $85,200.
Terrazas pointed out that even as the labor market has shown resilience over the last year certain sectors, like tech, finance and consulting, there is a slowing.
"It's fair to say that the tech talent market is the buyers market, you know employers, kind of have more negotiating power, certainly, than they did a year ago," he said.
Update 11/15/23 1:15 p.m. ET: This article was updated to clarify specifics about employment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Omar Mohammed is a Newsweek reporter based in the Greater Boston area. His focus is reporting on the Economy and ... Read more
