Alternatively: this is an America problem. I'm outside of America and I've been fielding more interviews than ever in the past 3 months. YMMV but the leading indicator of slowed down hiring can come from so many things. Including companies just waiting to see how much LLMs affect SWE positions.

Alternatively, it's a loud minority.

As an American I found a new job last year (Staff SW), and it was falling off a log easy, for a 26% pay bump.

It's from AI either directly or indirectly, either the top SWE's using AI are replacing 10 mid/juniors or your job is outsourced to someone doing it at half your Salary with a AI subscription. Only the top/lucky/connected SWE's will survive a year or two, if you have used any SOTA agent recently or looked at the job market you would have seen this coming and had a plan B/C in place, i.e. Enough capital to generate passive income to replace your salary, or another career that is AI safe for next 5-10 years. Alternatively stick your head in the sand.