DESIGNER'S - What's on your mind?

Industry is gloomy right now. Very few design opportunities available at this moment. Since many designers are fighting for a handful roles, recruiters have an upper hand. I feel job security is > salary growth right now. The kind of stories I am hearing is scary and heartbreaking. Trying to shift my focus to things that I can control and spending a lot of time on learning. I have set a few goals for improving my skillset as well.

Market is quite bad righ now. Designers are not being paid well. SDEs? They got it good imo.

There is a "racist" kinda gatekeeping approach in terms of hiring. Here racism does not actually state about the race of the applicant but what type of applicant they are (explaining further) So a lot of these new age cool startups or so called design centric companies tend to hire designers who look COOL, got that colored hair, have a cool lifestyle (drinking black coffee or boba tea?!?, tweeting, being woke, wannabe fashionistas with all those baggy jeans or loose tshirts, visiting cafes and making aesthetic reels and whatnot)...the basic stereotype of a Designer nowadays. A common reason for this is because the Hiring managers tend to be similar, they simply do not like someone who either looks more mature than them, has better skillset, is inclined towards UX than UI, has a bit of better knowledge and understanding. Although I myself am a GenZ but my generation tend to hate or dislike a lot of non GenZs or not so cool GenZs simply because they aren't "cool" or they do not "vibe". While considering that they have less experience they are less likely to be hiring managers yet they do influence the overall mindset at a company. Unfortunately most of the design teams want a labour who can design UI while they "brainstorm". At the same time the so called design leaders who often venture out to give "gyaan" on Design and UX in a bunch of conferences or Social Media posts where they specially highlight Empathy would never have the audacity to respond to a cold email or message. There is also a bit of Fake Image they create about themselves where they talk big terms yet fail to do the simplest things (not that I expect a 50y.o VP of Design to know figma) but one gotta practice what they preach. This is more or less due to he fact that nowadays alot of Design Leaders come from Art or Branding backgrounds which often influences them to not see beyond the "looks good" aspects of Design. The simplicity or usability is often overlooked due to being "cool".