Looking around me in Germany, I would say that we're out of the gutter at best.
My relocation consultant friends said that hiring has picked up again after their slowest year in business.
At some point it felt as if half of my friends were unemployed. Some of them had their 12 months of unemployment insurance run out, or their 6-month residence permit extension after losing their job. Now a few of them found jobs, but it took them a while and interviewing was far more difficult than before.
This is just anecdata, but it feels like if something recovered from the bottom, it was in the last two months at best.
On paper yeah but everyone I know who's applying to jobs is getting instant rejections before getting to the interview stage. Was also my experience a few months ago. The key word everywhere are "cost reduction" and layoffs and outsourcing are the norm.
>And companies in Europe still embrace home office often even in foreign countries
That's far from the norm. Most jobs (at least where I live) are in-office or hybrid. Full remote is super rare now. And fully remote from another country is usually B-2-B freelancing contracts which is not legal for one customer in all EU countries since it's considered dodging employment taxes.
My relocation consultant friends said that hiring has picked up again after their slowest year in business.
At some point it felt as if half of my friends were unemployed. Some of them had their 12 months of unemployment insurance run out, or their 6-month residence permit extension after losing their job. Now a few of them found jobs, but it took them a while and interviewing was far more difficult than before.
This is just anecdata, but it feels like if something recovered from the bottom, it was in the last two months at best.