Welcome to the reality a whole lot of people 40-and-under are facing:

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector...

Half of unemployed Americans are pessimistic about their outlook:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/10/unemployed-...

Class mobility is falling, and has been for over a decade:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/06...

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-t...

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/social-...

The US has some of the highest economic inequality in the world, and it's growing, with the top 10% of the population holding 70% of the wealth. The bottom 50% of the country hold less than 2.5% of the country's wealth:

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-inequality-debate

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/weal...

> Of course showing value still works. People advance and move up the ladder still.

Look around you; when is the last time any of your coworkers rose up through the ranks recently? Every time I hear someone talk about starting out in an entry-level position and working their way up through the ranks, it's someone substantially older than me, who "worked their way up" a decade or two ago. I've seen multiple discussions here and on reddit talking about how in the 90's and 2000's you could talk your way into a job (that day is long since gone), work your ass off, and get rewarded for it. Those days are long gone for all but top talent.

For a lot of jobs, there is no ladder. And if there is a ladder, it's probably a short one, and one that only goes a specific route.

Showing value to rise through the ranks only matters when someone is looking to promote within. Apple, Google, Facebook, etc all segregate their workers into castes, and you cannot cross caste lines.

Even within the lowest caste, there's still rarely opportunity for advancement. Amazon for example loves to sell a lie that the offer education benefits (after a long period of employment) and opportunities for advancement to their warehouse workers...but the reality is that they rarely to never advance people, and internal documents show they plan on if not outright encourage people to burn out and leave after a year or so.

This was in fact exactly why Amazon ended up with a union in its Staten Island warehouse. One of the guys who started the union did so because he was promised opportunity, worked his ass off, and saw supervisor positions get handed to fresh hires, and when he tried to apply to them, was told to buzz off.

Companies churn their low-value employees on purpose. They even outsource the employment to an employment contractor so that someone else has to deal with all the paperwork and training.

> Besides, what do you suggest? Just give up?

I wasn't aware I had to come up with a solution in order to point out the problem?