This current environment remind me of the early 80's recession as well. It also remind me of the mid 90's, when I was going thru it alone. In 94', I left my 9 year GS-5 guard position, and started my first IT position in the private sector, just to get laid off for no reason three months later. I was going on job interview after job interview. Then I got hired a month later for another private sector job in IT, starting me off with a big salary for the first time. I was so happy, I was literally touching my living room ceiling. The company was owned by foreigners. My first day there, they sat me in an office alone all day, except for my 45 minute lunch break. I remember this cute young slim dark-skinned sister working in an office across the hallway. She was wearing this blue dress. We instantly waved at one another. We were the only two Blacks there in this small company. The next day, they called me, and told me not to comeback for the time being. This reminds me of how cold these foreigner can be towards us.
I spent eight months going on job interviews. When I had only one more unemployment check left, I got a letter from this government job I'd been applying to for a long time, and got hired to start my first secure IT job. If I didn't already have 9 years as a government guard, they probably would have never hired me. I don't think the private sector was ever going to hire me. I guess I didn't have the right job interviewing skills, and I had the wrong middle name...whatever. During the time I was unemployed, it got to the point my girlfriend at the time, who was from Cameroon, let somebody talk her into believing I was the problem. I see more and more how messed up that was. Like what was I doing, going to job interviews walking on my hands, then returning back to normal in front of her? So now all of a sudden, none of this had anything to do with my race? I know it's hard to find the right African-American woman, but this kinda showed me no one probably identifies with a brother the way a sister from the states can. After six years together. we wound up going our own way only about four months after I started the job, and none of it was planned.
Fastforward, people are sending out hundreds of resumes today, and hearing nothing back. And unlike the situation I was in, some have been waiting longer than eight months for a new job. The difference in 2008 was, you couldn't get a security guard job, even with 12 years security guard experience, 11 years IT security experience, and half of grad-school. I experienced this when I almost hit rock bottom for the third time. During this 2023 downturn, at least you can still get one of these lower paying jobs, unlike during the crash of 2008. But you need two or three of them to make ends meet.