Coconut, here is a news story that may explain what is going on, basically after a workers market in late 90’s, the best boom of our lifetime, now its an employers market because supply of candidates exceeds the demand.
long article so i took out some key sentences for you to read here
The American economy has fallen into its worst hiring slump in almost 20 years, and many business executives say they remain unsure when it will end.
In December, the number of help-wanted advertisements in newspapers across the country fell to the lowest level in almost 40 years, according to the Conference Board (news - web sites), a research group in New York.
The labor market began this recession tighter than it had been in 30 years, with the unemployment rate falling below 4 percent in late 2000. Even at 6 percent its level in December, the most recent reading the jobless rate remains lower than it was during the aftermath of most recent recessions.
But companies’ reluctance to hire is causing pain in ways that the jobless rate does not measure.
An unusually large number of today’s unemployed have been out of work for months,.
“I went out and pounded the pavement faithfully,” said Theresa H. Washington, who lost her $60,000-a-year electrician’s job more than a year ago at a Cleveland steel mill closed by the LTV Corporation. “I did the whole nine yards in terms of looking for work, and I never had an interview.”
“There is no job market right now,” Ms. Washington, 47, added. She estimated that she had applied to more than 50 companies.
Qualcomm Inc., the technology company based in San Diego, receives 200 resumés a day, up almost 25 percent from a year ago, and the applicants are generally more qualified than in the past, said Daniel Sullivan, executive vice president for human resources.