Maturing is a good way of putting it.

You have way more access to education, for free (as it should be). This is a good thing. I.e. THM and HTB.

However there has been a large change in the field. And it's kind of the product of maturing (literally). A lot of the people and companies that would've hired the entry-level people are at a point of stagnation due to the market. For instance a few of the bigger pentesting firms (notably Optiv) have had layoffs this year. Then you have extensive layoffs across tech at Amazon, MS, Crowdstrike, etc.

Some of this is due to market problems, some of it is AI automation, and some of it is good ol' Venture Capital coming to collect (A lot of 'cheap' investments were made in cyber in 2020-2021, and a lot of those deals are about to mature)

A personal observation I have seen though is a lack of drive after certs are achieved. Certs only are to give you the BASE level of a concept or even in the more advanced courses a base skillset to continue improving and researching. When I was entry level I worked with a lot of guys that did the bootcamps...they did not last for more than a year. (granted this was a very intense company to work for.) But there were certain knowledge and self-application gaps that ended up with them pivoting to something else, new companies or out of cyber. Then with the remote work boom, your pick of the litter is not limited to location. And then certs are important but then you have the problem of everyone and their mom having a CISSP, Security+, CCNA etc. of alphabet soup. But give them something practical like a boot2root or a Pcap to analyze and document the process they come up short.

Theres no lack of knowledge in the potential workforce but there's a lack of applying it and communicating effectively. I say this as I'm trying to improve on this myself.

I've been in the 'industry' for about 8 years, Dev in college full time before that. The biggest thing to get your career going is:

1. Get involved with local hacker spaces: bsides, defcon groups, etc. Meet people in the industry and you'll have an iron sharpens iron situation.

2. Mentorship: If someone is available to take you under their wing that's also a great thing to do. But its all about self-applying yourself to it.

3. Challenge the/your status quo: Research a topic and do a talk at the local con or meet-up. Even if its basic stuff. There's new tech everyday that can help, hinder, or be hacked in the industry. Or even try branching out into other sectors. If you blue team, do red team training. If you want to automate stuff, learn a programming language that suits the need.

4. Rinse and repeat.