Illustration: Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images
Still thinking that finding a job in 2026 will be as simple as grabbing your resume and shaking a firm hand? You might want to read on.
The job outlook, at least in the United States, is grim. In the worst year for employment, U.S. job growth stalled in December as layoffs and hiring freezes hit job growth in sectors such as construction and manufacturing.
And there is a growing accessibility crisis under official employment statistics. More and more job seekers are finding themselves excluded from the labor market. This is not because there are no jobs, but because the torrent of AI has taken them off the table.
Case in point: a technical publication from a few months ago. markup We have posted job openings for engineers. As product director and editor Andrew Rosowski writes, the experience was a lesson in how broken the job market is.
“We received over 400 applications within 12 hours of posting the job,” Rosowski explained. “At first, it seemed like most of these candidates were genuine. But having had to read them all, I quickly noticed some red flags, all of which clearly indicated they weren’t genuine.”
These “red flags” include repeating contact information, broken or non-working links to your LinkedIn profile, repeating resume formatting, and mailing addresses other than your home address.
Most responses to the company’s application form prompts followed a “nearly identical four-sentence pattern, with slight variations.” Many applications included “what ChatGPT says” in their answers or information that “matches our job description almost perfectly,” Rosowski wrote.
“In the most extreme case, someone claimed to have built our website and a black light. [web privacy] tools (they didn’t have),” the editor continues.
Just one day of doing such stupid things, markup has removed its ads from job platforms such as Glassdoor and Indeed. Instead, we opted for internal outreach and word of mouth. While that definitely limited their reach, it slowed the flood of fake applicants “little by little.”
The publication has since discovered their engineers, but not without serious headaches. Applying this to other job markets, it’s no wonder job seekers are calling 2025 the year of the Great Discontent. Without major changes, 2026 could be even worse.
Job details: Job seeker sues company that uses AI to scan resumes
