Don't know what world you are living in, but things haven't change with the economy I'm living in. People are still complaining because there is still a serious problem that isn't getting better IMO based on the statistics I view.

Unemployment may be showing up less because of where they take the unemployment statistics from....people receiving unemployment....not from the actual number of people who are unemployed & looking for employment. As soon as a person's unemployment benefits run out, they are dumped off the number's list of the unemployed even though they don't have a job yet.

As for declining a job offer, I only did it once. I was in the middle of burn-out. I had been working long hours in the job I had, I had moved into a new house & had major knee reconstruction along with PT 3 days a week. The contract I was working on was cancelled by the Air Force & we were all let go from the company. I went out looking for a new job immediately, but was so exhausted, when I got the job offer, I ended up turning it down because I needed more re-cooperation time. They told me to call them back when I was ready to start working....another job I had applied for ended up being the one I finally took.

I was a firmware design engineer doing the programming of hardware for military systems in the aerospace industry. There were some areas I was stronger in than others & some areas, I couldn't do at all like programming ballistics calculations. I had a pretty good sense of what I could & couldn't do after a few years working in the industry so I knew what to apply for & what not to.

At the end of my career, there were no openings at the time in the technical area I knew...I decided to try another area....hated it even though I did a good job....I ended up trapped & I lost it. I didn't like what I was doing & hated that I could fake what I didn't know into a presentation for a national seminar that was accepted for presentation. This all hit before Christmas vacation. I felt so sick I couldn't go back to work after the first of the year. When I did go back, I was useless, then the 1994 Northridge earthquake hit, the freeway I drove on collapsed & there was no way to get to work so I had even more time off.....then 6 hours drive each way too & from work I lost it even more & went out of medical leave....never to go back. I never bothered applying for jobs after that because I knew that my anxiety was too high to ever be able to focus on any kind of job equal to what I had been doing....then depression set in realizing this was real....I would never be able to function the way I had before & at the same time the aerospace industry collapsed in California. Ended up on disability & didn't have to continue worrying about having to find a job again that I could do.

Don't know if your turning down the jobs is out of your own insecurities, or whether you are applying for jobs that are out of your ability & you are truly incapable of performing the required tasks.

Would strongly suggest that you work on your self-confidence if the first is your issue, or search for jobs that are within your abilities if the latter is the case. You know your skills, don't apply for jobs that don't match those abilities. You are the one applying for them. They can't usally tell your skills or have a way to test them other than believing what you tell them. That's usually what the probationary period is for on a new job, to tell whether you are truly compatible or not.