Nearly half of job seekers say the search has harmed their mental health. The damage is not rejection. It is the silence after the effort.

Active job hunters fell from 42 percent to 35 percent in a year. People did not stop searching because they found work. They stopped trusting the search.

Sixty percent of candidates quit a job application before finishing it. They are not lazy. The system was built to wear them down, and we think that is the real problem.