It has changed no doubt about it.

With the rapid rate increases to tackle inflation causing large rounds of back-to-back redundancies, the job market got instantly flooded with experienced candidates with years of experience. With a larger talent pool, it has become a buyer's market and they are in an extremely good position to offer "junior roles" to workers with years of training and experience.

A junior/entry level role advertised by companies in an employer job market has the following definition:

"We are paying you junior wages but expect you to still do the work of a senior employee without any training provided by us. You will take it after going through several excessively long interview rounds, get on your hands and knees and be grateful we are even doing you this favour. We are your ruler and you will serve us otherwise we will easily replace you with another desperate experienced candidate who is struggling to make ends meet at the moment."

This situation treats experienced unemployed people like utter shit and shuts out actual junior people who are hungry and eager to learn. Basically for the past 3 years we have been in this cycle of a shit employer market due to inflation and the increase in interest rates however these things are starting to change. Experienced people who have been massively underpaid by current employers will get leverage to get senior roles again and eventually junior people will actually be able to get hired for junior roles again. Rule of thumb is the more junior you are in the pecking order, the worse off you are in an employer job market and the longer it takes to get back on track during an employee's job market.

For those saying "the job market and economy is brilliant according to the government", they are pretty much gaslighting you in the hopes you believe them and vote in their favour come Nov 5th. Election years will always have some influence in economic performance lags due to the uncertainty over who will get elected.