You know...I think things are worse now than the dot-com crash back in 2001.

Back in 1997, I was laid off from work (the first of MANY layoffs) I spent two years unemployed. When I found myself out of work in 2001, I didn't find stead work until 2003. So two years has always been my "benchmark" for unemployment.

'97 wasn't because of an economic downturn, but because my job moved out of state, and I coudln't afford a move to Massachusettes less than a year after moving to Pennsylvania.

The 2001 Dot-Com bust, that destroyed the tech sector for two years. It was a massive gut-punch that happened over the course of a few months. The layoffs ended quickly, but it took years to recover. heavily changed (and now extremely exploited).

The 2008 Depression wasn't too bad. My layoff there ended with me back at work in less than three months, at the job I'd stay at for ten years.

This one, though. It's two years since the layoffs started...but they havent' stopped. There's been almost no recovery in the tech sector I've seen at ALL. I'm two years in, probaby at LEAST a thousand resumes put in, no work, and more and more of my friends are now job hunting as well.

I honestly don't think there's going to be a recovery from this. As companies move to AI cause it's cheap and continuing to be sent offshore, I think this is about as good as it's going to get in tech, and it's not good.

Even if it does recover, given how long the layoffs have been, I'm expecting it to take JUST as long, so we're not looking at a decent recovery until 2026. If at all.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic. But at nearing two years unemployed, losing the apartment at the end of the year, and burning money that would have been for my surgery...well...it's pretty pessimistic around here.

And why I'm probably going to have to restart my employment life from the bottom up.