[bruce511]

I'm not sure the economy overall is shrinking, but there was massive over-hiring at the start of covid, and the inevitable right-sizing drops a lot of applicants onto the market at the same time.

Growing your own startup is hard. You need to find a small niche and fill it well. It takes lots of work, most of it not the fun stuff (programming) but the work stuff - sales and marketing.

The payoff (if successful) is getting off the job-hopping hamster wheel, and becomes less dependent on your employer liking you.

If you go this route I strongly recommend you stop coding and start selling. If you can't sell it then you're coding the wrong thing anyway.