[toomuchtodo]

You're not wrong, but I believe we're still in the tightening phase. During the "Great Resignation," workers had lots of power because of labor shortages. Employers responded by firing and rehiring (Meta) to reset wages, offshoring, H1Bs, etc. It's also why, I believe, that employers are dragging out hiring as long as possible. They want to "redline" the org and see how far they can push to cram down labor costs and wages (throwing job reqs out over and over with lower and lower comp to trawl for the desperate) while also striving for as much profitability as possible in a high cost of capital environment (see Fed benchmark rate and cuts going to be pushed out much longer due to strength of economy). Employee bargaining power will be challenging for the next few years with the new admin being anti-worker (with regards to organizing and labor rights enforcement), but at the same time, we must consider structural demographics and the fact that ~11,200 Boomers retire per day (~4M/year).

Because of the slow burn of this, the labor market is in a bit of a Mexican Standoff. How this resolves or concludes, I cannot predict. Services labor would tighten if immigration of all sorts was constrained, labor that requires firm authorization checks would tighten faster if some combination of Boomers leaving the labor force faster or workers 55+ aging out faster occured.