I'm a business owner and hire SE roles on a regular clip. I'll share some things with you, the market is totally unpredictable right now. Even with some projected wins, we don't know what a new/mixed US Administration will mean. Investigations? Deadlock? New laws that impact us? We have record inflation for our career lifetimes and we seem to have entered a recession, but people still disagree on if we're in it and how long we'll last. My customers are all experiencing this, and while that emotion has slowed orders they have not stopped.

All of these things together as a business owner, going into holiday times; make me keep the mindset that hiring anyone right now for a non-essential position can probably wait until I can understand better what our company's financial picture is going to look like.

edit for typo