I would even say normal is a stretch, even on average. At least in my area of expertise, a whole host of new jobs are available now than they were five years ago. There are so many more remote/hybrid jobs that were around before, healthcare is still seeing shortages, manufacturing/fabrication jobs are plentiful like I can’t remember, and the effects of “college bad, trade schools good” have left us with less engineers than can be utilized, across man disciplines, as college enrollments continue to fall.

This is just anecdotal data, from m monitoring of various job sites regularly over the years. Of course, it could be that Indeed, Linkedin, etc have gotten more popular over the years, but I see increases everywhere. The local hospitals were laying people off in 2018-19 for example, while now they are seeking doctors, nurses, EVS, Bio-Med, and many other positions.

Really? I see so many posts about the tech job market being terrible and people not getting any offers. Have you been job hunting recently?