[vladus2000]

I wasn't out of college long, but I managed to survive two layoffs where I worked. We had almost no turnover in developers for a year or two because basically no one was hiring, normal for that job at that time was probably around 20% per year if not higher. There were no jobs to have, some of the people that were laid off didn't get jobs for upwards of a year, and some of those I know that did, ended up moving to get a job (I am not in one of the top 3 cities for it). They also really didn't give raises or promotions during that time either.

When I was in school, the comp sci program was so full it was hard to get into classes, hard to find a computer free in a lab to do the assignments/projects. The same college a few years later didn't have that problem from people I talked to. I never looked up the numbers, but I would imagine the number of people going into it dropped quite a bit, at least if the anecdotal stories I heard are to be believed.

Where I worked had nothing to do with experimental tech or anything, we lived on selling somewhat specialized, expensive software and hardware. The problem was, no one wanted to spend money.

It was somewhat demoralizing, as the second round of layoffs really hurt and it wasn't a fun job anymore, but I couldn't do anything about that for awhile.

I also know people who invested poorly that had all of their savings evaporated. Some people were paid partially in stock that pretty much went to 0 very quickly. It wasn't the best time.