Where the "panic" part starts to set in is that the people who are educated in the discipline aren't going anywhere. Suppose the trend does eventually reverse.

Where the "panic" part starts to set in is that the people who are educated in the discipline aren't going anywhere. Suppose the trend does eventually reverse. In 5 years you will still be competing with the people who graduated alongside you today, most people who graduated over the last few years, and people who will graduate in 2030. The supply side will continue overflowing with candidates, so anyone who graduated a long time ago and has no job experience after that will be left behind - this is the group that's graduating today. It truly feels like not being able to find a job under a certain time limit will basically make your education irrelevant for hiring purposes. And even if you manage to find a job after that indeterminate amount of time, it seems like anything but a blessing in disguise. Putting everything you've worked for on hold to work some soul-crushing, minimum-wage, abusive job while the rest of the world moves on without you. Even if you find a job in your field after this, you would've missed out on years of development that people who graduated during a boom would have acquired by now.