Instead of waiting for salaried jobs to come back, most people should mentally accept that once laid off, the old job is never coming back. Obviously this is tough to do, as humans aren’t really programmed that way.
...but employers are currently *swamped* with hundreds of resumes per day for any salaried job opening; if you get hired into a salaried job today, this year, or within the next 5 years, you have essential won the job lottery. Most people won’t be so lucky. Mailing off your resume is roughly the same as buying a lotto ticket; very similar odds now.
So what to do instead of emailing thousands of resumes...or instead of giving up and eating chips on your couch all day long?
Make your own job. Not business. Job.
Fish. Sell your catch. Pan for gold in national parks. Cut firewood and sell it at the local farmers’ market. Recycle aluminum cans. Drive a taxi. Buy a tow truck.
Put an ad up on Craigslist.org that you will haul large trash away and clean up property (foreclosed homes all require this service).
Learn locksmithing (vacant, foreclosed homes need their locks changed).
Teach firearms safety. Baby sit kids. Teach swimming. Teach sailing. Be the local parasail guy. Teach surfing. Scavenge tires from tire store discard piles.
Grow/sell veggies. Be a sharecropper. Be a share-rancher (e.g. run cattle on someone elses land by paying them a grasslease fee).
Make your own job. Grab a metal detector and walk the beach. Search for treasure.
Grow your own bio-diesel and sell your surplus. Get the proper permits and make your own moonshine or beer. Ditto for tobacco; grow your leaves, dry them, age them, then handroll specialty cigars.
Make your own job.
“Make your own job.”
Absolutely a great idea.