Personally, my theory is that the advent of “hiring algorithms” caused this. The widespread use of AI for weeding out candidates has gone way too far. These softwares are purging resumes of perfectly qualified candidates without the human hiring managers ever knowing about it.
That’s why every company right now is bitching that they can’t find anyone to hire while every unemployed person I know saying that jobs are impossible to get.
Anecdotally, that’s also why you get ghosted by companies instead of rejected. They have no idea you ever applied.