Martin Agbugui

Breaking down the job market and economy: hiring trends, layoffs, salary data, workplace culture, and AI's impact on jobs. Factual, no hype.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

The 2026 job market in one line:

Easy to keep a job. Hard to find one.

Almost nobody's getting laid off. Almost nobody's moving. And if you're on the outside trying to get in, that stillness is the whole problem.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Remote job postings keep shrinking as a share of total listings, but applicants per remote role are still far higher than in-office roles. Supply and demand for remote work hasn't caught up yet. Seeing more or fewer remote postings in your field?

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

The strangest job market in years isn't strange because it's crashing.

It's strange because it's frozen.

Nobody's getting fired. Nobody's getting hired. People with jobs stay put. People without them keep waiting.

Nothing dramatic. Everything stuck. That's 2026 so far.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

When people ask if the job market is turning, don't watch layoffs. Watch hiring.

Layoffs tell you if you'll lose the job you have. Hiring tells you if you can get a new one.

Right now layoffs look great and hiring looks stuck. Only one of those reaches a job seeker.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

This is why "is the job market good or bad" has no single answer anymore. For the employed, it's the calmest it's been in years. For job seekers, it's one of the hardest stretches in a decade. Same headline, two different worlds.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Two things are true in this job market:

Have a job? You're probably keeping it. Layoffs are at a 50-year low.

Don't have one? It's brutal. Postings sit open, replies never come.

Same economy. Totally different experience depending which side of the door you're on.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

The claims number (187K, lowest since 1969) measures firing, not hiring. Hiring has been stuck at low levels on a separate gauge. Two different meters: one's at a record, the other's on the floor. That's why the market feels nothing like the headline.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Applying everywhere and hearing nothing? Here's the part nobody explains.

Companies aren't laying people off. But they aren't hiring either. They're holding.

A 50-year low in layoffs isn't a market that's hiring you. You're hunting into a freeze. It's real, and it isn't you.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Source: University of Pittsburgh study of S&P 500 firms. Stanford separately found hybrid workers (2 days remote) are as productive and as likely to be promoted as office-based peers, and 33% less likely to quit. The data keeps pointing one direction.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Companies keep saying 5 days in the office boosts performance.

A University of Pittsburgh study of S&P 500 firms found the opposite:

mandates followed stock declines, showed no measurable gain in company value, and cut job satisfaction.

The evidence isn't on their side.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

A lot of Bees

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Magomed Ankalaev closes it out with a 5th-round TKO over Bogdan Guskov. Some really solid fights all the way through the card.
Big respect to everyone who stepped in the Octagon tonight.
#UFCAbuDhabi

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

@NotLikeSGA lol

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

@NotLikeSGA lol 😂 you are saying what everyone else is thinking

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

@NotLikeSGA That’s gonna be interesting

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

@NotLikeSGA Philly owns the NBA for the next two years

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Source: BLS Real Earnings, June 2026. Nominal average hourly earnings up ~3.5% over the year, inflation up ~3.5%, real earnings essentially flat. "Got a raise, still feel broke" isn't in your head. It's arithmetic.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Your paycheck went up about 3.5% over the last year.

Prices went up about the same.

So in real terms, the average worker's hourly pay is basically flat from a year ago. The raise was real. It just got eaten on the way to the grocery store.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas, June 2026. AI has been cited in 101,743 job-cut announcements this year, about 23% of the total. Fewer cuts overall, but a growing share of them name automation as the cause out loud.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

US employers announced 45,849 job cuts in June.

Down 53% from May. Lowest monthly total since December.

So layoffs are cooling. But the reason companies give has changed.

AI has now been the #1 stated reason for job cuts four months in a row.

[Martin Agbugui @MartinAgbugui]

The zip-code line is the joke. The part that isn't: most of the filtering now happens before a human ever opens the resume.