From my perspective (working in Europe) this year has been exceptionally tough. I'm working rn but I always keep options open, e.g. staying in contact with recruiters and looking at job postings. I'll apply for a job if it's a good fit.
Overall far fewer opportunities and salaries are down, and more stringent requirements across the board. Whereas before I would get a good response for an application - at least to the technical test or interview stage - now I just get rejections or crickets. I suspect many jobs are fake or they already have the candidate lined up. I'm not desperate so I haven't been trying especially hard, but I can imagine it's not a good time to be looking for work in a hurry.
Here in my side of the Europe, employer is having really difficult time finding any candidates for over 3 years. So last month they approved to try and hire on other countries in EU for these openings(they have presence in multiple EU nations and teams are distributed).
Infact the market is so good, that people living few blocks from the office premises(multiple locations) immediately decline once HR mentions that they need to come to office at least once every 2-3 weeks.
Then we have some junior interviews where they are asking more than what our mid and some new seniors make and 100% WFH, while most of us are in office most days(heck I mentioned in some other thread a while ago that I even commute 2h each way to/from work, cumulative 4h on office days).
I think, market is mostly volatile now and some are enjoying it while the others are suffering.
Also, let me not start the rant about now 99% of startups and SME now posts for only Senior Engineer/SWE with pay of juniors from 5 years ago or something, no wonder people won't apply.
Right, I'm not going to apply for office jobs anyway (I don't live near a tech hub, for personal reasons I can't move, there are almost no tech jobs locally, and I'm not going to spend hours commuting just to do Zoom calls from the office) and nor will I accept another pay cut -I had to take a lower-paying job earlier in the year because there were no other options.
I don't know if your company genuinely needs be office-only or you just have management who thinks they need to be office-only, but it sounds like there are applicants you are leaving on the table.
So yes, there are jobs, but not ones that I would apply for. Not being picky, but just for practical reasons. Even so, taking that into account, the job market is pretty terrible this year.
If I were overly honest, most of the employees doesn't even come to office, some I haven't seen over 3 months. However,management is pretty old people(50+), who apparently loves to be in the office for some reason.
So, in summary the "come to office" is just pleasing the management mostly. Also, most of the contractors we have can't enter the premises due to security bs, but in the end it is just all garbage when employees "need to come in every 2-3 weeks" I'd say. I on the other hand have to be in office because I need to deal with some non-smart sensitive hardware that is a bit too large and power hungry.
Speaking of pay, my employer actually pays pretty solid compared to what I hear my friends are making in similar positions to what my employer offers,but before this one, I frustratingly had to decline too many interviews because pay was insulting, I mean we need some pay disclosure upfront regulation here in EU and outright ban asking for expectations instead and then at the end stage citing fußball table and console to accept a huge paycut.
Overall far fewer opportunities and salaries are down, and more stringent requirements across the board. Whereas before I would get a good response for an application - at least to the technical test or interview stage - now I just get rejections or crickets. I suspect many jobs are fake or they already have the candidate lined up. I'm not desperate so I haven't been trying especially hard, but I can imagine it's not a good time to be looking for work in a hurry.