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The US job crisis has made headlines after the Wall Street Journal published a story of a man, who earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton University in 2024, failing to land a job after applying to over 2,300 positions.
Dr Jack Weiss: The subject of the story
According to the outlet, Dr Jack Weiss, 30, a native of Salt Lake City, Utah, graduated summa cum laude from Rise University and entered the Ph.D. programme at Princeton in 2018, where he researched chemical principles and intermolecular interactions.
His research on ice formation was even cited as an example of the scientific application of machine learning by the Nobel Committee when it announced the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024.
Job seeking process
Initially, Dr Weiss applied to several research position at pharmaceutical companies or prestigious postdoctoral roles at national laboratories with no luck.
He then went on to apply for more jobs, regardless of region and industry, and failed to even secure an interview in most cases.
In January 2026, he took on a part-time job earning 70 dollars per hour at a startup that hired specialists to train artificial intelligence (AI).
Without a steady schedule, he worked 20 hours some week and only four in others, and in March, he was notified of his contract termination via a group chat message.
Dr Jack Weiss reveals future plans
Dr Weiss is also considering law school and plans to take the admission test in November, while also trying his hand at entrepreneurship by designing a drone powered by AI to remove invasive weeds.
Job freeze in the US
According to WSJ journalist Lindsey Ellis, "After interviewing dozens of people across all 50 states, Weiss's story particularly stuck with me because it vividly illustrates the severe freeze that has paralyzed the labor market over the past few years."
She explained that the current US job market is in a so-called "low-hiring, low-firing" environment, adding, "Many people have jobs, but they do not leave them, limiting opportunities for others. Those without jobs feel as though they are locked out of the fortress, unable to break into a growing economy."
In the US, while the unemployment rate remains low, the proportion of long-term unemployed individuals who have been out of work for 27 weeks or more reached its highest level in about a decade this summer, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate aftermath.
Some data also show that the unemployment rate among college graduates has surpassed that of non-graduates. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, said the unemployment rate among college-educated New Yorkers aged 22 to 27 stood at 7.3 per cent as of March.
