Overall I'd agree with your sentiment, but it depends on the market.
I only know personally of one counter example to your message. In my career, I've reviewed, interviewed, and hired a few hundred people for somewhat known companies and startups. I also helped many friends find jobs in the past, before the market became what it is today, without any issues. So I like to think I understand what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for.
End of last year, a friend with 12 years of relevant experience started looking for a job. I reviewed his CV (which he tweaked for some of the applications) and cover letters (he wrote one for each company). Everything was as good as it can be for the position he was applying for.
Out of ~20 applications he got a total of 4 replies: 3 generic rejections and one screening that led him to being hired. He killed it during the interviews, but just getting his foot in the door was so hard. Maybe in some parts of the world we're back to 2015-2020 levels of recruiter "harassment", but in others it's super dry, even for senior positions.
That ratio you mentioned vis a vis applications to hire is about normal for me and something I would consider tolerable
Absolute numbers are probably less interesting than the % change. If you're getting a 5% hit rate but you used to get 20%, that implies that someone who used to get a 5% hit rate is going to have a much harder time.
I'm not sure the relationship is strict enough that the formerly 5% hit rate engineer is now going to see 1.25%, but my guess would be that they'll at least find things a lot more difficult.
I'm sure it varies quite a bit depending on role.
Before the market change, for senior engineering and eng management positions, the ratio was 1:1 if the person so wished. My whole career was exactly that: 1 application, 1 offer, always.