Why people are dropping out of the workforce and not looking for new jobs: ‘The market wore me down’
This year, the number of announced layoffs in January reached a level not seen since 2009, during the Great Recession, according to data from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “The candidate pool is absolutely flooded,” Coda says, citing mass layoffs pushing thousands of affected workers like himself into the job market at once. With that kind of competition, he says, “What chance do you stand?”
Discouraged job seekers like Coda, who have given up on finding work, at least for now, are part of a trend economists say is worrying: The labor force participation rate has been on a downward trajectory since the turn of the millennium, fueled by an aging population and fewer young people entering the workforce…
“Other than the death of a family member or a close friend, [unemployment] is one of the most devastating things that people face,” Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, told CNBC in June.