The 4.3% unemployment rate is below both the 10-year average of 4.6% and the 50-year average of 6.1%. For the second month in a row, the official government tally of jobs added blew past economists’ expectations. And the most recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed hiring surged in March.

So why are so many people struggling to get hired lately?

Many of the challenges job seekers face today stem from a yearslong decline in job openings, which has intensified competition for available roles. In response, more people pursued advanced degrees hoping to gain an edge in the market, but for many, that hasn’t materialized. At the same time, major workforce cuts in sectors like the federal government have added even more candidates to an already crowded field.

“When we look at that payroll number … that is just not reflecting what most people’s experience in the labor market today is,” said Kory Kantenga, head of economics at LinkedIn, referring to the April jobs report, which indicated employers added 115,000 new jobs that month.

In April, half of the new jobs created came from healthcare, while the other half came from retail, and transportation and warehousing.

However, “most people are not looking for jobs as couriers and messengers,” Kantenga told CNN. And even if that were the case, he said it’s unreasonable to expect the pace of job creation on the retail and transportation and warehousing side to be long-lasting, since many roles in those fields are more vulnerable to automation.

April hiring beat expectations, but economists warn the labor market is ‘frozen’

The healthcare sector has remained robust since demand for workers keeps rising as the population ages — and also because many services can’t easily be automated.

In other sectors, however, competition has widened while the pool of new postings has not.

Sophie Duryee, a political economy major who graduated from UC Berkeley last year, dreamed of working in the public sector, ideally in a regulatory compliance role.