Yeah, I know some people who are unemployed as programmers.
The unemployed code-bashers I know all refuse to develop new skills unless a sugar daddy (read: employer) pays them to go back to school. So they look for FORTRAN and COBOL jobs that pay more than anyone's willing to fork over--essentially, they make it cheaper to completely replace legacy applications.
Price yourself out of the market, and you'll find yourself unemployed.
I've sent out well over a hundred resumes, since my last employer went bankrupt, and have had only three responses, two interviews and no job.
My background is C/C++ coding for Microsoft Windows, including ActiveX and ATL, ISAPI, TCP/IP, four years as a project lead on three different efforts. I am currently studying Java, HTML, XML, SOAP, SQL on the Windows 2000 Professional platform using Enhydra as a Web server.
The hitech sector in Washington state has been devastated.