The truly “average” person (i.e. all other things being equal, someone who is consistently in the middle of the pack in terms of skills, experience, fit, etc. relative to other candidates) would have to apply to n/2 (i.e. half) the jobs, where n is the average number of applicants per job.
But in practice the distribution of candidates and where you fall in it tends to bell-curved rather than uniform — there are usually a few very well qualified candidates and a lot of not-so-qualified ones. So job market conditions (scarcity of talent/labour in your particular field, willingness among employers to lower the bar, etc.) can have a much bigger impact on how quickly you find a job than anything else.
In other words, given current job market conditions, telling someone to “just keep applying” is probably not the best advice. Chances are, they’re applying for the wrong jobs, their resume needs improvement, or they need to find some way to stand out.
U.S. inflation falls to 3%, lowest level in more than 2 years, as price pressures ease (www.politico.com)
Santiago, the capital of Chile, and the Andes Mountains (lemmy.world)