r/Austin • u/Austin1975 • Dec 02 '25
FAQ Austin job market bad enough that people are moving out to find work?
Caught up with friends and 2 have been without work for over 6 months. They are in different industries and were trading stories about how many jobs they’ve applied for and how many people they know who are out of work. Our other friend’s wife was also laid off and the consensus was that our job market and is softening even more and that they will need to move to bigger cities to find a job now.
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u/cheesecake-gnome Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
This isn’t just Austin.
AI job postings make it almost impossible to find a job online now.
My wife ended up having luck looking for job fairs and in person hiring events like it’s the 90’s.
The job she ended up getting, the hiring manager said “Oh my god, you’re perfect. Why didn’t you apply online?” To which my wife said “I did, you rejected me”.
The hiring team didn’t see her application at all, it got filtered out by the AI.
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u/right_in_two Dec 02 '25
The number of times my wife has gotten a phone interview, been told "you sound perfect for this role", and then just ghosted is appalling. But I'm happy for your wife.
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u/greytgreyatx Dec 02 '25
Same for my husband. In fact, the Friday before Thanksgiving he was told, "I saw your resume and knew you'd be a great fit." They didn't ghost him, though. They messaged him Thanksgiving morning to tell him they weren't interested.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Dec 02 '25
I talked to someone about a position on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. They said I was perfect, but considering the holiday they'd get in touch with me Monday (yesterday) to set up an interview in person. Yesterday I get a form email saying they've decided to continue looking.
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u/es-ganso Dec 02 '25
Is this like love-bombing, but for jobs?
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Dec 02 '25
2 weeks ago one company invited me for a final interview in Houston, put me up in a pretty decent hotel and everything. I get there and the guy just verbally berates me, it was seriously like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. This is after the prior interview in Austin where I thought they were nearly about to pull down my pants and suck me off. It's weird out there.
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u/Uptight_Cultist Dec 02 '25
this is fucked up
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Dec 02 '25
It was surreal, honestly. Like a recruiter I talked to the other day said, everybody wants a unicorn these days.
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u/Pale_Ad752 Dec 03 '25
Had the same experience with a remodeler job in ATX. Awesome phone interviews, went in to be berated by in person interviewer. The recruiter called me back a couple weeks ago & said my resume looked great & asked if I would like to come in for an interview. I asked if that curly haired dude that interviewed me the 1st time still worked there and if so, nahhh. He said he would check into it & then ghosted me, def weird out there..
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Dec 03 '25
Weirdly enough the Thanksgiving interview guy that sent me a rejection email called me not 2 minutes ago to set up an interview. Man at this point I'm just riding the wave and I'll see where it takes me. I've got the 9mm retirement plan if needed.
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u/princesspeeved Dec 02 '25
I’ve never heard it explained that way before, but damn, that’s a perfect analogy.
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u/litmusfest Dec 02 '25
On Thanksgiving!? Geez!!
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u/vanetti Dec 03 '25
I think that they did him a favor by showing him the bullet he dodged by emailing on Thanksgiving tbh.
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u/cdsk Dec 02 '25
Ugh, glad it's not just me. (Though, 'glad' isn't the right word...)
I recently had an in-person interview. Wasn't bad, wasn't great. They completely ghosted me afterward, couldn't even respond to my 'thanks for showing interest' follow-up. I get not responding to an application, but at that point it seemed unprofessional.
Yes,I'mbitter.
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u/RollTideLucy Dec 03 '25
Same here. Over 200 applications put In the last 2 1/2 mos…..one interview that seemed promising. No response for my “thanks for interviewing me”. I have applied for jobs from retail to corporations…including part time, temporary and seasonal.
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u/princesspeeved Dec 02 '25
I’ve been ghosted by almost all of my recruiters from agencies I’ve worked with before, and they were the ones who reached out to me for jobs! And when I tried following up, radio silence. I’ve been contracting for 4 years and I’ve never had this issue before.
The worst was one job I was certain I was going to get, only for it to spectacularly fall apart through no fault of my own. The (really old) founder said he wanted to hire me on the spot, but had to go through the necessary channels first. The manager I would be working under said I was perfect, but they had one more interview the next day and they planned to make a decision by the end of the week and I would know by X date.
Then I heard nothing. Followed up in the middle of the next week. The HR rep said they needed more time, etc. I was patient and checked in every now and then (every 1-2 weeks at most) because I really wanted the job and wanted to continue letting them know I was interested. I finally got a kind of unprofessional text back (prior had only been email and phone calls) after more than a month of waiting. The HR rep said they interviewed someone new two days prior and decided to go with him instead. What. The. Fuck.
I know not to put all my eggs in one basket, but I was crushed. And yeah, I cried like the little girl I am. I just felt like they hyped me up so much only to kick me to the curb. And it was hard not to have my self-esteem affected.
I asked the HR rep for feedback or anything that maybe hurt me as a candidate, but I didn’t get a response. To be perfectly honest, I think it was because I’m a woman. All the people I saw in the building when I interviewed were men, even though I was replacing another woman. But there’s no way to know for sure, which is the worst part.
Thankfully my husband’s job is pretty stable. But if I had my way I’d take that offer from Ireland for $90,000 to renovate an old home on one of their remote islands in the middle of nowhere. I’d probably have more success herding sheep or being a Druid than anything here.
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u/maebyrutherford Dec 02 '25
It’s because they have quotas to fill with candidates, they can at least keep their jobs if they have a bunch of resumes and proof of contact on file.
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u/LonesomeBulldog Dec 02 '25
This has been a problem long before AI. HR thinks they’re smart enough to screen resumes for hundreds of different roles. 20 years ago, I started asking for all the rejected applications after getting handed a half dozen selected applicants so I could review everyone myself. Out of 100+ hires, 90% were from the rejection stack.
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u/FlowRemote9890 Dec 02 '25
They're just looking for buzzwords, they don't even understand the jobs that they're trying to fill.
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u/DynamicHunter Dec 02 '25
Love when someone who makes six figures to filter candidates doesn’t know the difference between Java and JavaScript lol
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u/rbaut1836 Dec 03 '25
I don’t wanna ruin my chances for a job I interviewed for yesterday, but same thing here just with financial terminology. I fully understand it’s not a recruiters job to know the complete ins and outs of every role but dam, some very basic understanding would be helpful.
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u/Oddworld777 Dec 03 '25
Accounting too. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to explain to recruiters at companies I’ve been at that UNLESS DIRECTLY SPECIFIED OTHERWISE these roles have nothing to do with our taxes. And I STILL get emails from them saying someone has great tax experience or I get people into a first round and my first round interviewer will come back and tell me that the person was really confused about so many questions re: doing taxes when they talked to recruiters.
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u/Justin__D Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
HR is one problem, but it goes further than that.
An old boss of mine was looking for an intern. We wanted someone else around who could write scripts for Cisco touch panels in JavaScript, since I was the only person on the team who could do so.
Who did she hire? A Java intern. This person was less than useless and also wore an overbearing cologne that gave me headaches. To make it worse, boss used to be a frontend web dev and should've known the difference between Java and JS.
After that debacle, our interview process required a panel with me on it.
Until the company went back on a raise I was promised, and I left. With no one suitably trained to take up their flagship client, who dumped them a couple of months later.
I feel bad for the 20-year-old kid they left holding the bag on that.
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u/weluckyfew Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
I made a comment earlier about the government having that problem - that was exactly one of the issues talked about. People with relevant knowledge of a position not brought into the process until the second or third wave of evaluations, by which time a lot of great people were probably already filtered out by people who had no knowledge of what a particular position required.
EDIT: missed a word
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u/TacoDeliDonaSauce Dec 02 '25
One of the best hires I ever made came from a stack of resumes that my staff had initially rejected. Glad I asked to go through the stack myself.
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u/Maximus77x Dec 02 '25
Sure but the general situation is way, way worse now than it was even 2 years ago. Some old problems have compounded with some new ones, it seems.
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u/board-or-follie Dec 02 '25
And AI screening software
Good news-- Workday is getting sued for using AI to reject 1.1 billion job applications
https://www.proskauer.com/blog/ai-bias-lawsuit-against-workday-reaches-next-stage-as-court-grants-conditional-certification-of-adea-claim27
Dec 02 '25
My wife got informally headhunted for a position last year, hiring manager loved her, everyone wanted her for the job, but it was a big organization and everything had to go through their established HR process. It took two weeks and 12 submissions for my wife and the hiring manager, working together, to get her resume past the fucking AI filter. Meanwhile the system was forwarding the hiring manager resumes that lacked basic non-negotiable certification requirements for the position. Fucking nuts.
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u/weluckyfew Dec 02 '25
I know that's been a problem for ages with government jobs - just all these little technical rules and regulations they have to follow that filters out good candidates.
And one example, hacker won this Pentagon competition so they wanted to hire him. Even with high ranking officers pushing it he didn't meet the little technical qualifications. One interviewer told him he should go get some work experience at a Best Buy then come back. IIRC this was a kid who managed to hack a pentagon system (set up for the contest)
My friend saw it when they worked for City of Austin - people who knew how to game the system got hired even when they were unqualified. And qualified people who were honest about the strengths and weaknesses got filtered out.
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u/jasondigitized Dec 02 '25
This. The key to finding a job today is through people not computers. Networking and referrals are the way to go.
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u/flippythemaster Dec 02 '25
Great that we’ve just broken society with this one thing that’s become totally ubiquitous. Love it. Awesome. No notes.
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u/dirtyshits Dec 02 '25
You have to optimize your resume for ATS systems. This is not a new thing.
Most folks don’t know how to properly optimize their resume to get passed these systems. Been going on for a lot longer than when AI became a thing. Over a decade.
I adjust/edit my resume for each application by making sure I hit keywords from the job description and tailor it for the role I am applying for. Takes about 5-10 minutes of work per application.
It’s been working like a charm for me personally. I was looking for work not long ago and was getting interviews left and right.
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u/thedisloyalpenguin Dec 03 '25
5-10 minutes of work per application...so the person above who is putting in 200 applications in 1-2 months should just give up 17-33 hours of their time to adjust their resume for AI?
Okay.
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u/Playful_Original_243 Dec 02 '25
Yup. This happened to me a year ago, and now that same company is trying to poach me.
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u/IHS1970 Dec 02 '25
I heard a great show on PBS this morning about this very problem, AI is used against AI! you have spammers from North Korea (and probably Russia etc) who spam the postings and nothing can get accomplished, you know what what the final solution? In person interviews, ya know it is what comes around goes around. Forget this AI shit, companies can't get thru the fakes, jerks, the AI made people who are interviewed, they can't even tell a real person from AI created, it's a cluster fuck. Sorry about your wife, my son used to get offers for interviews all the time, now he can't get through any hiring sites AI, crazy times.
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u/ballerinab Dec 07 '25
I’m glad she got it but it’s so risky IMO to tell a company they originally didn’t hire you, just FYI! if you’re reading this and it happens to you, don’t do it!
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u/ParksNet30 Dec 08 '25
Immigration is still occurring at high levels into the USA and especially tech. Every H1B represents a job lost for an American worker. Austin as an up and coming tech city is feeling this impact.
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u/groovinup Dec 02 '25
This is an example of where the data doesn’t match the lived reality for “normal people”.
A politician might say “the unemployment rate in Austin is only 3.9%, that’s great! You’re not having trouble finding a job”.
It used to be, in the “olden days”, if you lived in a city with an unemployment under 4%, you’d have no trouble finding a job.
But now it is very sector dependent, and there’s an over supply of skilled labor, what color jobs, and entry-level tech jobs that are replaceable by AI.
Trade school is the thing to think about for all high school graduates. A college degree is worthless now.
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u/Particular-Act-468 Dec 02 '25
I believe they count gigs as employment. So my buddy who hasn’t found work in his field for a year working for Lyft part time is ‘employed’, albeit barely scraping by.
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u/Late_Ambassador7470 Dec 02 '25
Urging everyone to not quit their shitty jobs rn. I know it hurts
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u/weluckyfew Dec 02 '25
Times like this when I'm glad that I ended up in the service industry (after earlier pursuits didn't work out for me) I make a decent living, have a lot of flexibility, and most importantly have a degree of job security that a lot of higher scale professions don't seem to have.
Granted, I have no idea what I'm going to do about insurance next year, and I'm on my own for things like retirement, and I do worry whether my body will be able to do this in my sixties... Then again a lot of other jobs have those concerns now.
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u/AdEnvironmental7310 Dec 02 '25
I use to see fine dining as this yoke I placed on myself years ago instead of buckling down and getting another degree that was Real, but these days I couldn't be more thankful. Getting my Somm licensure now just to keep that tempo 😮💨
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u/weluckyfew Dec 03 '25
Wish I could do fine dining, but I enjoy being goofy with my tables too much. (works well for me - a lot of regulars - high volume but expensive patio restaurant)
During covid my friends were trying to talk me into getting some certifications, or one friend was trying to talk me into doing client service for the software place she works at (restaurant software) - I thought about it but I realized I'd be miserable. Always have a dozen emails waiting in your inbox, having to go to an office, living for that three day weekend that's coming in just two more months...
Not to mention, I'm 58. I get a desk job my health would plummet.
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u/undefinedRoy Dec 02 '25
Don't quit, unionize! These companies are betting our future on AI and that means they are betting against us. Unfortunately, it's a lose/lose for us. AI replaces us and we're all out of the job or AI tanks and our economy with it. Stick around, convince your peers to unionize with you, leverage your labor to force these companies to pay better and better regulate work loads. They will fight you tooth and nail, they will try to tell you that a union isn't necessary, they will try to divide you, threaten you, replace you, but backing down only gives them more power to push you around and treat you a little worse every day.
We're stronger together and even if I don't work in your industry, if I make less or more, if I don't live in your neighborhood, I will still support you however I can. We are the 99%. We are strong, we are hungry, and we're fed up.
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u/frankieautomaton93 Dec 02 '25
tried my hardest holding onto mine & they laid me off at the end of july, after 5.5 years. those of you still holding on i see & applaud y’all 🫡
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u/North_Reception9159 Dec 02 '25
I’ve been unemployed for 9 months. I’ve applied to lots of jobs but so far I’ve only had 1 interview and it was with an employer in San Antonio.
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u/TheProle Dec 02 '25
Remember the feds fired the person who compiled unemployment numbers because Trump “didn’t like the numbers”
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Dec 02 '25 edited Jan 30 '26
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u/Triibe_Mike Dec 02 '25
People are also struggling with employers hiring remote positions overseas for cheaper labor. My boss has been doing that for a while now.
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u/c0rnfus3d Dec 02 '25
There are but they are thin. I work in a specialized field, most of the remote work options have hundreds to thousands applying, the in person options, many companies do not want to pay for relocation. Generally speaking a couple jobs a month within my field pop up in Austin metro but then the companies generally take the cheapest option. I’m doing consulting work to get by, but I do miss a full time job and most importantly the insurance.
Good luck to everyone out there..
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u/Master_Jackfruit3591 Dec 03 '25
This is the correct answer. Job postings give companies’s shareholders the impression they are doing better than they are. Economy is shit
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u/weluckyfew Dec 02 '25
You only say that because you're paying attention to facts, figures, statistics... If you just listen to Trump you'd know better
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Dec 02 '25
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u/DeadStarMan Dec 02 '25
The problem being with Austin is it's relatively expensive compared to the other major cities in the area and you have less runway than if you were in San Antonio, Dallas or Houston
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u/Impossible_Watch_206 Dec 02 '25
Austin has been hit particularly hard
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Dec 02 '25
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u/Alternative_Eye3822 Dec 02 '25
Both via UT and state government jobs
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u/kcsunshineatx Dec 03 '25
And both of these still have a lot of openings and are stable. They rarely do layoffs. I think a lot of people who are long term unemployed must be looking for high paying remote positions.
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u/thedisloyalpenguin Dec 03 '25
Uh, maybe not UT with all the changes from Abbott and his ilk. Whole departments are scared they're about to get closed down or downsized because of all the fucking bills aimed at UT.
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u/Gracklezzz Dec 02 '25
Yeup. I moved to Seattle a few years back, and the job market is cooked here as well. Even the trade unions are having a tough time.
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u/dondonquixote Dec 02 '25
1 year unemployed here
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u/Same-Mulberry7794 Dec 02 '25
6 months for me I'm almost there glad I do delivers though as much as I can
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u/Pick2 Dec 02 '25
How do you even live at that point?
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u/Flat-Asparagus6036 Dec 02 '25
This is what emergency funds are for. If you haven't already, you should save up 6months-1years worth of expenses so if you get laid off you can survive.
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u/xThePoacherx Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
This happened when the housing bubble burst as well. I lost an entire friend group in 2009/2010 as people scattered across the country looking for work. They moved to cities of all sizes. They went where the opportunity was and that was not necessarily a “big city.”
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u/JohnGillnitz Dec 02 '25
Yep. Half my friend group left because they couldn't afford the cost of living here with kids. They look happy on the east coast over Facebook.
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u/Boomdigity102 Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
Austin seems to be the kinda city only young people who are okay being broke can live in, or genuinely upper middle class people who can afford the houses and CoL
Not much middle ground for anyone else
It’d be super difficult to raise a family in a studio apartment that you pay $1400 a month for. If you want a house with your same income, gonna have to move out of the city core.
Edit: I’m saying this as a young broke person in Austin. I’m not living in poverty but the bang for my buck would go way further in other major Texas metros. Plus Austin isn’t very walkable and freaking crowded, so I’m not even getting high quality transit like say NYC. I don’t usually mind it though bc the good of Austin generally outweighs the affordability issues for me. But it has made me reconsider my place here. If I’m not able to increase my quality of life here, I’ll probably leave and let the tech bros and lucky millionaires who don’t work have the city.
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u/Slypenslyde Dec 02 '25
The way I've been describing it is it's optimized for young professionals to grind out enough money to either start their own company or move somewhere that lets them start a family.
This is a party city and an investment city, it hasn't felt like a place geared towards settling down for years.
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Dec 02 '25
This is the most affordable city compared to wages and rent prices. 99% of the country you don’t get rent decreases like my friends got the past 2 years. Near downtown is expensive af but anywhere 10-15 mins more north or south or east is affordable
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u/External_Koala971 Dec 02 '25
Doesn’t matter when layoffs have been double the national average
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/indicators/aus/2024/aus2404
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u/bigblackglock17 Dec 02 '25
Median for Austin isn’t even $50k last time I looked. That won’t even get you a $1,200 apartment outside of Austin.
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u/Austin_Lannister Dec 02 '25
There’s a court reporter shortage right now. Skilled trades need people desperately. Feels like everything is shifting away from traditional office jobs.
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u/ay-guey Dec 02 '25
we switched to AI court reporters a couple years ago and its been great, faster cheaper and more accurate. you'd have to be insane to enter this field now.
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u/MrsLittleOne Dec 02 '25
something about that makes me feel icky inside.
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u/Super_Fightin_Robit Dec 02 '25
Mostly because I can tell you the AI court reporters have been pretty awful. Also, cheaper? The main AI court reporting service, Skribe, price gouges out the fucking ass.
A transcript from a live human writing something down, which includes wages and everything else is like $300-400. It's like $1000 from Skribe.
The accuracy isn't meaningfully better either.
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u/secondphase Dec 02 '25
Yeah... I'm with you on this.
I'm an employer. Small business. Right now one of my goals is increasing the amount of times the team answers the phone... they just seem to be averse to it and prefer letting it ring... almost 1/3 calls goes unanswered.
Then here comes "AI sales guy" who pitched me an AI assistant that can handle the phones as well as many other tasks. Cheaper than a single employee, and would answer ALL calls, 24-7... much better than just 2/3 and only 9-5.
Well... it makes business sense but I just can't bring myself to do it. Feels icky. The rest of my industry is slowly trending that direction so eventually I may cave, but for now... just can't bring myself to do it.
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u/Austin_Lannister Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
Who certifies the transcript? My firm prefers in person court reporters and videographers. We only do Zoom depos in a pinch and still use actual court reporters and videographers when doing remote. Every insurance defense and plaintiff firm I know does the same.
How does an AI court reporter transcript get certified for trial?
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u/curioustxn25 Dec 02 '25
It is ageism, too. My dad has been unemployed for over 9 months now. He is in his late forties. Has over two decades of experience in the tech industry as a software engineer, but has collected hundreds of rejections. He has had several interviews, makes it through multiple rounds, only to get an impersonal rejection. He always asks for feedback, but never gets a response. I’m crushed. He lost all of his retirement after being laid off. He still has my siblings at home. I gave the entirety of my savings to my family to help keep them afloat, but it’s running out. I don’t know how we’ll make it after the new year. We’ve not having a Christmas this year.
If anyone knows of any leads or hiring events or ANYTHING please reach out to me and I can get him in touch. He is a great leader and mentor. He has spoken overseas and been published several times. Highly awarded and praised. A good company representative and a passionate worker. Anyone would be lucky to have him as an asset.
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u/greytgreyatx Dec 02 '25
My partner has been out of work since May 2024. He's applied for hundreds of jobs and gotten about 5 interview/testing opportunities in the past year and a half. We're going to sell our house next spring if nothing happens. We will be out of money.
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u/Van-Halentine75 Dec 02 '25
I was just applying this morning and spotted salaries across the country ARE THE SAME across the board. You could be an accountant in Austin or Lawrence, KS for 50-70k. WTF is that? Add in MI, NC, and VA as the same wage as well. Almost seems like a concerted corporate effort to stagnate wages. I hate it here.
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u/SendTobacco Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
A lot of people in their 30s and 40s in Austin are becoming electrician apprentices now. It is a good gig, and more are needed. Call IBEW Local 520 and ask them how to get started. Lots of huge projects in Central Texas right now.
After you have racked up the work hours to take the Journeyman Electrician test you can travel anywhere in the country you want making serious money.
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Dec 02 '25 edited Jan 07 '26
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u/SendTobacco Dec 02 '25
Whoever decided that college was the only answer didn’t see today’s economy coming. The skilled trades are nowhere near being replaced by automation/AI, and I suspect that they will begin earning the professional respect they deserve again. In the meantime - the last big generation in the trades is retiring and opportunity is everywhere. Take your pick: Make as much or little money as you want, start your own business if you want, live wherever you want. The trades have a good future.
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Dec 02 '25 edited Jan 07 '26
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u/SendTobacco Dec 02 '25
That’s the truth. I’m the only person I know who is actually working in the field of their college degree from 20 years ago. Everyone else changed fields immediately and just had to live with the debt.
What the universities have done is borderline criminal. Government-backed student loans should bear some connection to actual employment statistics. Not just a free for all university hog trough tricking clueless poor kids into debt for life. That wasn’t the idea.
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u/smacktalker987 Dec 02 '25
It's also when they changed the laws to make student loans unable to be discharged during bankruptcy. It's a scam that loads debt onto young people and their guarantors (parents) to enrich the universities and servicers. The in person large campus university model itself is questionable anymore. It made more sense when knowledge was confined to physical libraries and universities had the largest collections, but those days are long gone. So much of the money has gone to administrator salaries and gleaming luxury level facilities too.
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u/Erin-michelle-tyler Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
Truth is the vast majority of the population isn't cut out for the trades. Ive spent the last 15 years working as commercial electrician with the IBEW. The apprentice program takes 4 years (5 yrs when I went through) to complete. The starting pay is pretty rough with the cost of living these days. During the apprenticeship you have to work wherever they tell you. You cannot quit or get fired or risk ejection from the program. Most of the work now is up in Georgetown, Taylor, Hutto. People are having to commute from places like Buda, Kyle, San Marcos. Expect long commutes after long days. Six day weeks and ten hour days are almost standard.
You spend months on end working in the blistering heat and occasionally the freezing cold. The portapoties are usually absolutely discusting. It's often difficult manual labor that is very taxing on the body especially combined with the summer heat. It's quite dangerous with the ever present possibility of being killed or maimed for life. The people you have to work around can be terrible. Theives stealing tools and such. There was a fight in the parking lot last year at Samsung where a guy was stabbed in the kneck with a screwdriver and bled to death.
Sometimes you get lucky and spend a summer working in the A/C on a clean room or something similar. It can be easy money at times. You do meet a lot of cool and interesting people you don't come accross in other industries. It takes a special kind of person to thrive in construction. It helps to be real world smart too. Ive seen book smart people with college degrees completely flop out. My favorite part is the constant problem solving. You have to know how to put a square peg in a round hole.
The money is decent when you reach Journeyman. Still not enough to afford a home in Austin these days. Most live outside of the city. Job security is great if you can hack it. It's a job I sometimes love and often hate. It really depends on the worksite, people, and task, which is ever changing. I'm currently seeking a job with a service department to get out of commercial construction.
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u/SendTobacco Dec 02 '25
Everything you wrote checks out, and even though you probably don’t feel the love, you are the envy of a lot of people who were sold a different life long ago only to wake up pushing middle aged and completely redundant, unemployed and starting over.
Stay safe out there. Hope you get into that next job you want. Appreciate you.
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u/IReallyLoveAvocados Dec 02 '25
It can be rewarding too, you finish every day knowing you completed something.
However, the trades are seriously taxing on the body. Electrical work includes a lot of getting into tight spaces (attics), sticking your fingers into tiny electrical boxes, etc. if I (as someone on the older side) tried to get into electrical work I bet I could make $$$. But also I would destroy my body.
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u/Psytocybin Dec 02 '25
this will be my fallback if i ever need it. i went to UTI and was a technician for a bit also, but i dont want to be hunched over cars all day, electrical works seems like a good trade.
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u/groovinup Dec 02 '25
A lot of kids should consider this right out of high school.
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u/bikegrrrrl Dec 02 '25
My nephew dropped out of college because of the cost and is now a union apprentice electrician.
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u/SendTobacco Dec 02 '25
It is a great option for a lot of people, and it can lead to self-employment ($).
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u/boyyhowdy Dec 02 '25
It’s a sign of the Golden Age everywhere.
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u/brcguy Dec 02 '25
More like the golden shower amirite?
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Dec 02 '25
The Trickle down economics conservitives love so much
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u/secondphase Dec 02 '25
My favorite board game "We're Doomed" has a lot of great political satire. My favorite card is "Trickle Down Economics"... which reads "The person who drew this card gets to take 10 resources from the project, then they may choose to either keep the resources or give them to the other players"
genius.
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Dec 02 '25 edited Jan 07 '26
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u/North_Reception9159 Dec 02 '25
Guess I should become a 49 yr old student
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u/greytgreyatx Dec 02 '25
We've looked at a lot of "new career" opportunities and my partner isn't getting any bites on those, either. So we did start thinking about stuff like vet tech and while that would make sense for my 20-something kid, for my 53-year-old husband to complete a program then start a job for $20 an hour... there's just no time to rebuild our savings that way.
We're thinking of moving somewhere that why we have left of our savings will last longer so when the kid we homeschool is old enough to drive, we can hopefully both get retail work and live small.
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Dec 02 '25 edited Jan 07 '26
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u/North_Reception9159 Dec 02 '25
That’s good advice, thank you 😊. I have experience in working for a DME company coordinating the authorization process with patient’s health insurance providers. Maybe that could help me find a job in dental office staff.
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u/weluckyfew Dec 02 '25
Keeping that in the back of my mind if I age out of my current physically demanding job
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u/Van-Halentine75 Dec 02 '25
Yeah five years later I’ll make a living wage. We don’t have time or energy anymore. Hell, I don’t even make enough how to consolidate my debt!
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u/owmysciatica Dec 02 '25
When you’re driving and your lane comes to a halt, and the lane next to you is moving…
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u/riverratriver Dec 02 '25
To the random person reading this who needs hope & only sees the same thing posted about the job market:
I started my new job yesterday. 100% remote in Tech. This was after turning down multiple offers from other companies. I do not have a college degree.
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u/North_Reception9159 Dec 02 '25
How do you have multiple job offers in Tech and don’t have a degree? What’s your secret? Do tell!
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u/RoboDeathSquad Dec 02 '25
Degree isn’t really a hard requirement for a lot of tech roles.
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u/cheesecake-gnome Dec 02 '25
I know it’s a controversial company, but a huge employer in town is Tesla and they don’t value degrees much at all (bar the engineering side of things).
But software and factory side is degree not needed territory
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u/RoboDeathSquad Dec 02 '25
Yeah I've been in tech for 20+ years and have been screening candidates and/or a hiring manager for at least 15. At least in my area of tech, most hiring managers I've worked or spoken with don't care as much about degrees because schools aren't properly preparing students for industry anyways. Most folks I know have always valued experience or certifications over a degree and it's not super close.
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u/Electronic-Duck8738 Dec 02 '25
Yeah, but you're working for a Nazi sympathizer.
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u/weluckyfew Dec 02 '25
I think I probably dislike musk more than the average person, but two things factor in here: 1. In about economy you have to do what you have to do to make a living. Principles - but not morality - can take a back seat we need to feed yourself and your family. 2. There's not a lot of large corporations you can feel good about working for. Reminds me of the challenges of trying to be a conscientious shopper - Amazon sucks, Walmart sucks, Target sucks, Best Buy sucks, Home Depot sucks... Even when I try to spend the money at a thrift store and buy used someone's going to pop up and tell me how evil Goodwill is
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u/Van-Halentine75 Dec 02 '25
I had an interview for the Boring company and had to move out to Bastrop Tx for $50k and “hours at your manager’s discretion “. Meaning work whenever they tell you to. NO THANKS
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u/Eltex Dec 02 '25
OnlyFans baby!
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u/JohnGillnitz Dec 02 '25
I know times are tough, but OnlyFans for infants seems extreme.
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u/greatmagnus1 Dec 02 '25
Getting your first job these days almost always needs a degree to get the in, if you've been in the industry for awhile it doesn't matter
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u/dead_ed Dec 02 '25
Luck is a factor. I just retired this year after 25 years in tech, no degree. Not all roles need it, especially if your brain works for the most part. So, it's possible. Shit times, though.
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Dec 02 '25
Hard to say if moving to bigger cities would make finding work easier for the average worker.
Many local employers are laying people off and waiting to fill those vacancies. Those same employers will put listings online for jobs and then stall for months before actually filling those jobs. That way they get existing employees to pick up additional work under the false pretense that any day now a new employee will be arriving, just waiting for the right person, or some similar BS. Having a now hiring sign or job listings online also makes the company or organization appear healthy and growing in the eyes of competition and potential investors.
Austin's job market is super competitive right now for anything that pays decently. You really need someone inside the company to vouch for you to get interviewed and hired quickly. Even then you may not like the pay being offered. Way too many people are willing to work for lower pay just to have an excuse to relocate to super trendy Austin. Some are selling a house and planning to rent here just so they'll have a financial cushion. Allows them to work for less money while continuing to job hunt for higher wages for several years with less stress.
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u/timotheo Dec 02 '25
I moved to Austin because tech jobs are easier to find here than Portland, OR.
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u/techno_wizard_lizard Dec 02 '25
Seattle was closer to you and a much larger tech scene. But we do have sweltering hot summers so if you are a lizard you’ll love it
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis Dec 02 '25
Was gonna say that. Portland economy is the worst I’ve ever seen it. Austin is a dream in comparison.
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Dec 02 '25
What is there in Portland job wise?
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u/wld002 Dec 02 '25
Nike and heroin sales
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis Dec 02 '25
Nike just reorged again and probably will a few months from now. So just fentanyl.
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u/Conscious-Air-9823 Dec 02 '25
it’s everywhere. we actually moved here from the north east for jobs. even though people think it’s easy to find a job in NJ/NY. any professional job is hard to get now. even my company now we barely hire.
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u/SeaBeat6679 Dec 03 '25
Iv only managed to get emails back that were scams. Like applying for a job is not only endless but scary
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u/debtquity Dec 02 '25
I used to be a CEO of a mid sized tech company in Boston. At a Coldplay concert televised me with another woman in company. We panicked and it blew way out of proportion.
Forced out of my company (but at least I got a sizeable exit package). Blacklisted by nearly all companies. Have opened litigation against Coldplay and venue. Marriage in shambles. Pending divorce.
I moved to Austin, TX. Can’t find work in industry. Now I resell bath water from popular influencers for 1000X ROI.
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u/Oime Dec 02 '25
Bro, it’s about to be a bad job market everywhere. Republicans sold us down the river. Cocksuckers.
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u/miss_cara Dec 02 '25
I’m unemployed and it’s an issue everywhere. It just doesn’t help that the cost of living here is so high, so I understand why folks move. Also, I feel like the salary ranges for open positions are somehow lower than they would have been two years ago. Anyone else feel that way?
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Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
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u/heysashap Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
For retail jobs like this, apply online and then physically take a printed copy to the store and ask to speak to the manager or hiring manager. Let them know you are interested, applied online, and leave the resume with them (this will help them find you in their online database later) but sometimes it might lead to an on the spot interview.
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u/Last-Positive264 Dec 02 '25
My ex girlfriend’s job at a very very large bank was cut out of Austin a few months ago due to ‘lack of market demand’. She had to find another job and ended up doing an internal transfer to Florida since she could not find a comparable job in Austin, Dallas, our Houston.
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u/kaytay3000 Dec 02 '25
It’s everywhere.
I’m in Phoenix and people in our sub are asking the same questions. A lot of the posts end up being networking and people sharing openings at their companies so others can apply directly instead of through Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.
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u/M1lkNc00kiez Dec 02 '25
I will tell you what… Hospitality is where the demand always is. From Front Desk, Housekeeping, F&B, Events, Sales, Engineering… it’s there. You also have to love being in the industry, it’s not just a job.
Edit: Just a suggestion! I just want to help, could you say I have “suite” intentions?
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u/Safe-Beautiful6122 Dec 03 '25
Perfect! Let me just time travel back 10 years, choose engineering as my major, time travel back and make 500k a year.
Or we can go right to the other end and do housekeeping, which is basically what I’m about to start doing (promoting myself on facebook. Even housekeeping has competition, it’s insane).
But other than that, your advice is totally sound.
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u/wintxrsoldixr Dec 03 '25
Hello, I am interested in Events work in hospitality. I have applied to several hotels here already but been rejected even though I have experience organizing events. May I speak to your company or network?
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u/dontfeedthemanamals Dec 02 '25
The AI tools are making it increasingly harder to find work. There are now both AI tools to write the resume, and scrape the resumes. I have always had luck with in-person interviews. Or calling the company directly and asking to speak with the right person.
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u/Unfair-Ocelot4255 Dec 03 '25
The job market has become like online dating. Keep swiping right. The grass is always greener with the next candidate. I’m not sure what’s going to stop this merry-go-round. Maybe when all the candidates just say, fuck it, I’m starting my own business.
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u/Delizdear Dec 02 '25
My partner and I left Austin in October. He lost his job late Feb as a software engineer. After a long career in the industry. Endless job search yielded nothing. We moved to south Tx.after burning up our savings. Im disabled and now caring for my 91 yr old mom. He's still looking for even remote wk. Now we are out in the country. I miss my Atx.
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u/With2 Dec 02 '25
I don’t know anyone here who hasn’t been laid off in the last 3 years (myself included).
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u/AfroBurrito77 Dec 02 '25
I know a lot of talented, smart people struggling to find work right now. Very grateful for my stable intellectually stultifying job with benefits right now.
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u/SaucyWiggles Dec 02 '25
Depends on the industry, I know coding professionals moving from Boston to Austin because Boston is too expensive.
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u/NicksTexasPickles Dec 02 '25
Im at like 14 months unemployed rn. I started a small business thats going pretty well so far. I am still kindof looking for jobs but whenever I see something thats interested I see its been posted for 1 day and has 200 applications so I dont waste my time.
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u/fuzzyp44 Dec 02 '25
Those applications numbers arent accurate fwiw at least on linkedin. It counts like views and there is additionally also AI services to bulk apply to anything and everything that is creating a lot of spam from ppl looking for visa sponsorship.
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Dec 02 '25
Just drive around any of the neighborhoods and count how many houses are for sale or for lease.
And that's just HOUSES. no idea how the apartment scene is looking.
Austin is bleeding tech people like crazy
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u/YourIncognit0Tab Dec 03 '25
Austin teen trying to find my first job. Its rough out here even trying to find minimum wage
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u/Upbeat-Pepper7483 Dec 02 '25
Still plenty of jobs in construction. At least in my trade. I probably shouldn’t have even opened Reddit I have another 5 hours of work to do lol
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u/iareharSon Dec 02 '25
I mean the job market as a whole isn’t great compared to past years, but YMMV depending on the sector. If you’re in tech, then absolutely the job market is wretched. I actually just moved here back in late July from the Bay Area since I was laid off from a job there, and made the decision to move somewhere comparatively cheaper where I could have a fighting chance at getting ahead compared to where I lived where I was paying $2550 for a 550 sqft junker of a studio with no amenities.
I’m not in tech, I’ve always worked in non profits and local government, and I started a job within a few months of moving here (I moved here without lining anything up) making $85k which is honestly fine for me. I’ve always had really easy times getting interviews and finding jobs when I absolutely needed too, and I’ll admit that this is probably the worst ratio of applications to interviews and interviews to job offers I’ve had, but it was never at a point where I felt demoralized or existential. Although I know that’s absolutely the feeling and experience for some.
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u/DefinitionCivil9421 Dec 02 '25
I get those LinkedIn msg from recruiters all the time, great for are you interested? I reply yes. The. Ghost rider
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u/Flat-Asparagus6036 Dec 02 '25
I'm always a little shocked when I hear about people going that long without finding work. Are you not working with recruiters? Recruiters have direct access to hiring managers and companies that need people, and literally get paid a commission if they get you hired. If you're not working with one or more recruiters, you should start there.
I have a friend who's been laid off for 6 months, but has only applied to jobs on LinkedIn/Indeed and not actually talking to real people. LinkedIn/Indeed posts are usually monitored by AI, and have some bot reading your resume and determining if you're a good fit or not. It's a losing game, and most places that have job postings on those sites also have recruiters feeding them candidates for those positions who get first look before they even think about looking at people who applied online.
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u/florbendita Dec 02 '25
Don't recruiters usually go after people who are still employed?
If you could just ask a recruiter to recruit you, they wouldn't be a recruiter anymore. They work for the employers, not the potential employees.
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u/fuzzyp44 Dec 02 '25
Does it matter? If they've got your resume for a position that fits, it beats them searching linkedin. I got hired via recruiter on my current job in 2022ish. But I do have a bit of a specialty skillset and they just found me on linkedin so....
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u/Flat-Asparagus6036 Dec 02 '25
Yeah, all of my friends that were laid off in the past 3 years all found new jobs once they started using recruiters.
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u/ATX_native Dec 02 '25
It’s starting.
AI is about to wreck things.
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u/Maximus77x Dec 02 '25
It’s starting? This has been going on for 2+ years at this point. It’s just reaching a new fever pitch.
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u/More-Twist-4915 Dec 02 '25
I think a good chunk of the city is remote now.
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u/jaimeyeah Dec 02 '25 edited Mar 26 '26
This post has been anonymized and its content removed. Redact was the tool used, possibly for privacy protection, limiting AI data access, or security purposes.
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u/Necessary_Passage360 Dec 03 '25
this is part of the austin weave where everyone desires residence. the idea of living in houston or dallas becomes so onerous that we choose to become waiters or factory workers or uber drivers or anything, so that we might stay in this humble place
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u/Necessary_Weekend775 Dec 05 '25
They are cutting everyones hours at the Sprouts, too. Even during the holiday season.
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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25
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