This year’s job market has been bleak, to say the least. Layoffs hit the highest level in 14 years; job openings are barely budging; and quits figures are plummeting. It’s no wonder people feel stuck and discouraged—especially as many candidates have been on the job hunt for a year.
But some mid-career professionals are working with the cards they’ve been dealt by going back to school. Many are turning to data analytics, cybersecurity, AI-focused courses, health care, MBA programs, or trade certifications for an “immediate impact on their careers,” Metaintro CEO Lacey Kaelani told Fortune.
But while grad school can certainly offer the opportunity to level-up your career once you’ve completed a program, it comes with financial and personal sacrifices, like time. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, one year of grad school, on average, costs about $43,000 in tuition. That’s nearly 70% of the average salary in the U.S.
Late 40s, highly skilled, trans, unemployed for 2+ years.
I’ve been down to the final candidate selection a few times now and still haven’t been selected yet.
I’ve hired plenty of people. In general, final candidates are usually all fully capable of doing the job they’re applying for. In the end, the hiring manager just gets to pick the one they want to work with most.
I feel like when hiring managers look at me, all they see are problems and risks. Time consuming HR meetings, extra effort making sure people use the right pronouns, judgements from executive leaders who might see a middle manager not doing a good job at leaning into where the winds are headed.
I wonder, even if I spend 3 more years on a secondary degree, whether I’ll find myself right back in same situation (talented and surrounded by cowards unwilling to hire me), but now with $200k in new student loan debt.
Jesus. I’m looking at getting some additional masters degree in Spain and it’s 10-14 months and 1.5-4k Euros.
That’s like the cost of a college meal plan for a 4 year degree in the US. Not including housing in the dorms, just the food.
Oi! Not trans, but queer, also unemployed for over 2 years now.
I used to be an econometrician, so I can tell you:
You, me?
We’re not unemployed.
We are ‘Not in the Labor Force’.
… we do not count towards the offical unemployment numbers.
Wait…
If you’re still actively seeking jobs you’d still be counted in the official unemployment category of U-3 unemployment. Even if you weren’t applying to jobs but still wanted to work you’d be counted in the (potentially more accurate) U-6 unemployment, right?
source
Normally, in a more sane and functioning world, you’d simply be correct.
I was a bit overzealous, I myself have given up looking because of the massive shadow jobs problem, the interview processes are ridiculous, etc etc, I erroneously transposed that onto them as well.
However, because Trump fired the head of the BLS, and Elon/DOGE cut back their workforce a good deal…
https://www.nisa.com/perspectives/heavily-distorted-cpi-print-reveals-little-useful-information/
https://www.markets.com/analysis/cpi-estimation-methodology-concerns-us-1010-en
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-11/bls-leans-more-on-second-best-option-for-filling-in-cpi-blanks
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/imputation.htm
For most of this year, they haven’t even had enough staff to actually directly measure about a third of what goes into CPI… they just take the old data, run a model on it, predict it forward, and pretend thats real data.
They call this ‘carry forward price imputation’ or something like that.
So they’re just using some esoteric price model(s) to estimate, instead of actually gather, a bunch of data that is then treated as if it is real data, for the next stages of actually calculating the various cpi segments.
If they’re that fucked at doing cpi, they’re almost certainly also fucked at actually doing the Household Survey properly.
Granted, I can’t strictly prove this, because I do not have a team of forensic accountants auditing their data…
… But, having worked as varying kinds of data analyst, I can say with high confidence that the BLS methodology itself is flawed, and their ability to actually undertake that methodology is severely hamstrung for this whole year.
You don’t end up realizing that you overcounted job growth by a fucking million jobs… if you have a sound methodology.
… So thats a very long way of saying ‘well technically, if you wanna get technical, actually, this is all horseshit at this point, thus the person I’m replying to probably isn’t actually being counted, via problems that go outside/beyond the simple stated BLS methodology.’
You make a very good point. I’ve stopped using CDC for any realistic data or health guidance and instead defer to Health Canada or the NHS.
I should have also assumed economic data from the trump administration was equally suspect now.
what kind of work are you looking for?
managers that do the hiing like to play games and gauge response, to see if you play ball with the company, being outside the standard applicant, does have risk.
i also have considering going back as a post-bacc but because my previous degree had some setback academic wise, makes me somewhat inelgible for partial grad school.(for a niche ceritification), unsure if taking postbacc will offsett the setback. also because post-bacc is more expensive than regular undergrad class as well.