Same here, and please accept my sympathies. Two years ago I voluntarily left the work force to care for ailing parents (who since recovered) and expected to just come back to IT consulting as I had for 20 years.
Lo and behold, the entire consulting business had changed, 1) because H1Bs reached a tipping point where they are now running the consulting agencies and making hiring decisions inside their client corporations, and 2) the online recruiting market has been completely taken over by scammers, phishers, and identity thieves.
It’s hard to find anyone to trust, and then they’re not likely to get the job requisitions they once did, because of hiring quotas, corruption, and outsourcing. The Indian agencies are even getting preferential treatment in the bidding process because they are so-called “minority owned businesses”.
Everything will correct itself when Obama leaves office, if for no other reason than the old systems and documentation will be in serious need of upgrades / updates. Supposedly the corporations are sitting on mountains of cash to do things like that. But until then the job market will continue to be awful.