Has the job market always been the same ?

It's been a few months since I've started to apply to relevant openings while staying in my current job. Because everyone who switched without an offer strongly suggest not to leave if I don't have an offer at hand.

At the same time, recruiters aren't replying back because

1. I'm still in my current job and not serving notice period.
2. My official notice period is 60 days (I guess this is the same in almost all companies)

So, it feels like you can only switch if you are near your notice period because that's when I've found recruiters to be reaching out to you in big numbers for interviews and stuff.

But that gives them the full leverage of lowballing you because you now want to switch to a new job without a gap and so they are gonna try to hire you at the lowest possible value. Is this how recruiters have always been ? Shameless humans exploiting potential good employees?

I know not all recruiters are the same. But most are. I'm even hearing about recruiters making false promises like hybrid policy, flexible work timings and more, but in reality, its full time WFO, min 9 hrs punch-in and punch-out. By doing all this, aren't they destroying the trust development between the new employee and employer literally on day 1 ? What dumbF behaviour is this ?