I just released Empathy 2.24.0! I branched for GNOME 2.24 so trunk is now open for new stuff, see the roadmap for more details.
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote an interesting usability comparaison between Empathy and Pidgin. Some of the problems pointed by that document are already fixed in Empathy 2.24.0, others will be in 2.25.x.
And finally a personal note: I’m not searching for a job anymore. I work full-time for Collabora since September 1st. This means I’ll have less time for working on Empathy, but Collabora agreed to let me work on Empathy 1day per 2 weeks. So all contributions are appreciated, don’t let empathy’s development slowdown.