[TomGuy]

People who are not out in this job market searching for a job simply have no idea how bad it is right now.

I can empathize. In the '93 recession, I lived in Dallas-Ft.Worth. After sending out over 400 resumes, I had a total of 10 job interviews. I was competing with others of similar qualifications, as that recession hit engineering/technical areas the hardest. Around 8,000 engineering/technical people were hitting the UE rolls weekly.

I was in Tulsa in the mid-80s recession. You couldn't buy a job at McDonalds. The official UE was at 8.5% and the unofficial UE was about 13.5%. Many fled to Houston. I worked about 4 total months out of nearly 3 years. I survived using personal saving, doing some part-time clerical type projects, and by substitute teaching -- which paid $25 per day, but was not constant. I was lucky to sub 3 days per week, as there were many others waiting by their phones to get the calls to sub.

[Red in Blue PA]

On one interview I had, they were interviewing about 20 people.....do not want to know how many actually applied.

[Thermalseeker]

I can empathize. In the '93 recession, I lived in Dallas-Ft.Worth. After sending out over 400 resumes, I had a total of 10 job interviews

I worked overseas along about that time. Nicaragua, Israel, Saudi, Indonesia, Taiwan, eastern Europe. Made great money, too. Lots of that stuff available now for techies if you don't mind traveling. I'm still seeing some stuff in Huntsville, AL, with certain defense contractors, too, but you've got to be squeaky clean.