Across Europe, the data suggests stability rather than crisis. Headlines reflect that calm with resilience, adjustment and normalisation.
It all looks broadly functional.
And that’s exactly the problem.
Because the surface of the market—the part we see—is no longer a reliable guide to how hiring actually works.
US researchers estimate that as many as 1.6 million vacancies may effectively be “ghost jobs”—listings kept active without immediate hiring intent. In the UK, hiring platform Greenhouse reported that a significant number of its platform’s listings showed similar characteristics during 2024–2025.
The market signals openness. The hiring system behaves differently.
There is no shortage of activity. Listings remain high. Platforms are busy. Applications are being submitted at scale.
But activity is not the same as access.
In the UK, vacancy numbers have remained elevated even as hiring has slowed and employer caution has increased. In the US, long-term unemployment has continued to rise despite substantial numbers of reported openings.
At the same time, research across hiring platforms points to a growing mismatch between posted roles and actual hiring intent. Some listings are left open for extended periods, used to build candidate pipelines or signal growth rather than to fill an immediate position.
The result is a labour market that appears open, but behaves as if it is partially closed.
Most commentary stops there. It points out the mismatch and leaves it at that.
But something more structural has happened.
The job market has quietly split into two layers—and most people are operating in the wrong one.
This is the market everyone recognises.
Job boards. Public listings. Application portals. Automated screening systems.
It is highly visible, highly active, and increasingly inefficient.
Here, candidates apply in volume. Employers receive hundreds—sometimes thousands—of applications per role. Filtering becomes more aggressive. Hiring cycles lengthen.
This pressure falls hardest on younger candidates entering the market for the first time. Entry-level postings have fallen sharply across several sectors, while youth unemployment across the European Union has remained close to 15%, representing nearly 3 million unemployed people under 25.
Gen Z is applying to a market that appears open on the surface but is increasingly difficult to access in practice.
So the visible market becomes a funnel—but a very ineffective one.
This is where hiring actually happens.
It is quieter, less visible, and far less crowded.
Roles are filled internally. Teams expand through referrals. Conversations begin before positions are formally advertised.
Uncertainty has increased, and employers have become more risk-averse. Hiring externally carries more perceived risk than extending an existing team or bringing in someone already known to the organisation.
At the same time, many employees are choosing not to move. The result is what economists describe as a “low-hire, low-fire” environment—a labour market that appears stable because movement has slowed on both sides.
Stability, in this context, is not a sign of health. It is a sign of friction.
Most job-seeking advice still assumes a single market.
Write a strong CV. Apply consistently. Increase volume.
All of that operates within Layer One.
The issue is not that candidates are applying badly. It is that they are applying to the wrong part of the system. When large numbers of applicants compete for limited access through a single channel, the outcome is predictable: diminishing returns.
A job-seeker simply increasing their volume of applications or continually polishing their CVs demoralises them and just produces diminishing returns.
This is why the current market feels so confusing. There are vacancies, but no traction. Lots of apparent activity, but no progress. Seen from the outside, it looks like a problem of effort.
But effort is not the constraint.
Access is.
Once you see the market as two layers, the strategy changes. Instead of competing solely in the visible market, the focus shifts to accessing the second one.
That means being specific about direction—not just “looking for opportunities,” but knowing which organisations or roles actually matter.
It means approaching companies before roles are formally advertised. It also means building relationships—through conversations, introductions, and visibility in the right context. This is vital because a substantial proportion of roles are filled through internal movement or network-based hiring rather than open competition.
The implication is simple.
The people who move through the system are not the ones who apply more. They are the ones who position themselves differently.
The job market has not broken.
It is functioning—but along lines that seem invisible and are certainly no longer obvious from the outside.
The visible layer continues to expand because it is easy to scale. However, the access layer remains constrained because it depends on trust and familiarity. That gap is where most of the frustration now sits.
For those entering the market, particularly younger candidates, the instinct is to widen the search. Apply more broadly. Increase application volume.
Previously, that instinct made sense when visibility aligned more closely with access.
It makes less sense now.
The people breaking through and getting roles they desire are rarely those who are applying most aggressively through the “normal” public channels. They are usually the ones who already know where they want to go, approach their chosen organisations directly before roles are formally advertised, and build relationships before they need them.
A substantial proportion of hiring still happens through trust, familiarity, and internal networks rather than open competition.
The visible market continues to absorb the majority of applicants because it is easy to access and easy to scale. But visibility is no longer the same thing as opportunity.
Everyone else is still competing inside the visible market.
