Yeah, I don’t know a single person that didn’t work.
This is one of many of my associates in the service industry that had substantial employment challenges.
If you had regular job, you were eligible for unemployment there was also PUP enabled due to pandemic, so if you were self employed you could request unemployment under that. In addition there were also short periods of time where you could get extra $600/week (as it is impossible to survive for long on the usual unemployment amount)
They tend to work as contractors on a limited term contract and international maritime labor laws are unlikely to require it. Note also the country of registry for the ships may have more lax labor laws too.
(edit)
The only instance of unemployment being mentioned in international maritime labor laws I've found is https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:91:0::NO::...
> Regulation 2.6 – Seafarer compensation for the ship’s loss or foundering
> Purpose: To ensure that seafarers are compensated when a ship is lost or has foundered
> 1. Seafarers are entitled to adequate compensation in the case of injury, loss or unemployment arising from the ship’s loss or foundering.
This very specifically deals with ships sinking. Not "ok, no work everyone off."
A delicate balance: The seafarers’ employment agreement, the system of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 and the role of flag States - https://hal.science/hal-01470314/document also touches on unemployment (there's a single mention of it).
We were all subject to one master. But under a different punishment.
This may have been your experience but it was nowhere near mine. I think talking about “tech” as a whole is generalizing too broadly.