I believe the job market is not doing too good. Some friends told me their organisations (mostly financial industry, not too sure about other industries though ) are having heatcount freeze.

And not just people who are older, I also know of even young fresh grads or to be graduating students looking for internships, are also having issues. I have heard friends who received zero replies when looking for internships (top student with excellent results somemore), and younger friends with higher degrees and couple of years of working experience, are also having difficult time in job hunting.

They all not affected by the age factor, with good results in good uni and relevant degrees... The problem is most of them are not getting any responses from their applications. Is like some earlier posts here have shared... Like the applications have went into some black hole.

In general, guess the market is not very stable now, and organisations may be more conservative in hiring (usually they will offer contract and see if they can extend or convert when times are better).

I guess openings you see in the portals may not be 100% true immediate openings. These could be potential or wishlist which organisations may want to fill if they get the approval or when times are better or when there is an immediate business needs.