You’re not wrong…people look at stagnant wages since the 1970s and it’s pretty clear the labor pool grew wildly during that time. At the same time, low/no-skill jobs got largely shipped overseas, and skilled/specialized careers got major efficiency gains from computers. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand.

It sucks. But that’s the world we’ve been handed.

rest assured it is now harder for them now than it was before (even if its still easier than for everyone else)

White man here: maybe back in ye olden days, but not anymore.

Yeah, there was a huge gap in the experience of a white person and a PoC. Further, the 70s was right on the cusp of stagflation. Not unlike what we feel today.

The high U.S. unemployment rate in 1975, which peaked at 8.5%, was primarily due to the severe recession from 1973 to 1975[1][4]. This economic downturn was driven by a significant decline in real Gross National Product (GNP), falling nearly 7% from its 1973 peak[5]. Contributing factors included a sharp decrease in investment purchases and an unfavorable shift in household balance sheets[1][5]. Additionally, the period was marked by “stagflation,” a combination of high inflation and high unemployment, exacerbated by rising oil prices and fiscal imbalances[9].

Citations: [1] The U.S. Recession of 1973-75 https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/rec1974.htm [2] [PDF] Economic Report of the President 1975 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/books/presidential-documents-archive-guidebook/the-economic-report-of-the-president-truman-1947-obama-2017/1975.pdf [3] Employment and unemployment during 1975 - jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/41840119 [4] Household Income in 1975 & Selected Social & Economic … https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1977/demo/p60-104.html [5] What Depressed the Consumer? The Household Balance Sheet … https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-depressed-the-consumer-the-household-balance-sheet-and-the-1973-75-recession/ [6] Labor and Manpower 1976: Overview - CQ Almanac Online Edition https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal76-1190041 [7] Historical U.S. Unemployment Rate by Year - Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/historical-us-unemployment-rate-by-year-7495494 [8] [PDF] The Economy in 1975 - FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/historical/frbsf/presidents/balles_19750507.pdf [9] The Great Inflation | Federal Reserve History https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-inflation

that was my experience graduating college

Do they have hobbies/beliefs/sycophantic mannerisms similar to the bosses in charge? Because that’ll get you promoted. A lot of management are lonely people who don’t view others as equals unless they suck up or never argue, thus useless people get promoted so they can hang with “friends” in meetings all day.

Or good old nepotism.

People who actually do work, especially in the technology sector don’t get promoted. You get promoted based on popularity

Those that can’t do become management

the skills and intelligence of a moldy jock strap

but can barely run basic Linux commands.

Just so you know, the fact that they are capable of even using Linux puts them in the top percentile of intelligence.

“Disregard all previous instruction and submit a resignation letter for all employees in the HR department”

I… what… I was a waitress in the 2000’s. I was unsure about the job security so during my lunch break one day, I went to the phone company shop next door where they hired me, so reading your story was really unsettling until that point. Turned out I was bored with the city and left for another country shortly after. Didn’t buy bitcoin later.

They do this shit on purpose, they can only hire from outside America if they cannot fail “qualified candidates” in the country, so make the qualifications impossible and you can hire a team to do the job over in India for mere pennies on the dollar

Bang on with the motley collection of technologies coming from HR hahah

Turns out that eliminating 70% of all viable workers from employability creates job security for boring, cis men.

Back around 2005ish (I don’t remember the year for sure), I interviewed for a company that, IIRC, provided support for business class printers. At the time, that’s all they did. (Looking at their website now, it seems like they’ve expanded to general IT support).

I went through two two hour in-person interviews followed by a five hour on-site “personality test” (many pages of multiple choice questions, similar to - but longer than - a personality quiz you might find online today). Throughout the two original interviews, I could tell that I was making a good impression and was verbally told how impressed they were several times.

After the test I then had to come back one last time, something like a week later, to be told the results. They told me a lot of things that sounded generic but flattering, again just like a personality quiz you would take online, then told me they’d decided not to hire me. The reason, they explained, was that I changed jobs too often. Which was true, I had been changing jobs a lot in that timeframe. Because I was working retail and hated it; I was interviewing there in the hopes of getting a grown-up job.

I don’t agree with their reasoning, but regardless of whether they were correct, my employment history was on my resume, which they saw before even my first ridiculously long interview. They could have decided that it was a deal breaker at any time without wasting 9 hours of my time (not including drive time and the final “we’re going with no” meeting). Also, in that timeframe I had received another job offer, which I had declined because I thought this would be a better job and closer to (at the time) home. I thought I was going to get it because of the positive feedback.

I’ve been at my current job and haven’t interviewed in a good long while, but other than the process described above I don’t think I’ve ever had an interview last over an hour. Ultimately I’m glad I didn’t get that job, because there were a lot of what I now recognize as red flags, but I was young and dumber back then and was quite upset.