That's a hugely biased source, of course.

Assuming you're in the US (as HN is biased in that way, and you're using HN as a source), the unemployment rate seems to hover around ~3.5% for the last year, and it was ~6% two years ago. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

You’re doing it wrong. 1 interview means you need to spend more time personalizing yourself to the applications. Start cold messaging people on LinkedIn at the company who went to your alma matter, spam blind, whatever it takes to get a connect at the company.

Sorry if you're already doing this, but you should focus 100% of your effort on networking, don't bother sending out any applications ever. You need a referral to put your name on the top of the list unless you went to MIT or something

Friends, family, family friends, old professors, old professors' friends, online game clan members, etc

Graduated into a recession myself. If you can't get hired right away, the situation only compounds, so buckle up. No one's advice helped. Was eventually told by several internal recruiters at job fairs that companies were loath to hire someone more than 6 months out of college who hadn't found employment in the field. Spent years working unrelated jobs, barely scraping by. My debt ballooned. Talking to anyone online typically ended with being told that the problem must be with me; the market was recovering, so I probably just suck. It's depressing to be an outsider looking to get a break. It's easy to lose confidence in yourself.

It took me years and a lot of luck to claw my way into developer roles. And you know what? It wasn't me. I didn't suck. Life had just dealt me a bad hand (one of several).

Not to say everything is great now. I missed out on years' worth of promotions, investments, and retirement savings. I'll probably never achieve fu money or so much as retire early. But I'm hardly hurting financially nowadays.

Which is all to say, hey, I hear ya. Hang in there.

Graduated into the 08 recession. Knowing what I know now , I would have drawn out my graduation date as much as possible until the market started to improve. See if there's a way you can work for/affiliate yourself with some lab and in 2024 you will be able to pretend as if you're fresh out of academia and have never looked for a job yet.

The positive here is you are going to learn to hustle. Anyone who entered the market in 2020 probably lazily sent out a few applications via job boards and had a position in a month.

You will have it way harder, but stay positive and keep at it. Keep iterating on your resume and personal website. Apply to large numbers of jobs and if you find a position you really like then hunt down someone you can email or figure out how to get a referral. You will embarrass yourself, look foolish and have to feel needy.

This sucks but it is also an opportunity to get super desperate. That desperation will result in some skills that we wouldn't normally gain.

If you're seeing 150k decrease I can only assume you were getting an exorbitant rate not too long ago. Getting $600k to write REST APIs was an aberration and will probably never come back. You can still earn an upper middle class salary at a financial company or retail very easily.