HR departments get flooded with AI generated applications by the truckload making automating rejections the only viable way to keep up
That goes both ways. Employers have been auto rejecting applicants for years, so applicants have shifted to automating applications.
Why should someone looking for a job take the time to craft an application, when it gets rejected without a person ever actually looking at it.
Last time I went job hunting (2yrs ago), I got a response from less than 1% of the jobs I applied to.