[mathattack]

On points 1 and 3 - people are not interchangeable, and good ones are in tremendous demand.

I think the big difference between 1999 and now is back then anyone who could spell HTTP could get a great offer, because there was a lot of dumb money chasing people. The industry has learned it's lesson. Now it's very hard for a Marketing person with a personal website to pass themselves off as a web guru.

It's also much harder for people with "bad signs" on their resume to garner interest. Most of the top companies don't look at 10 years of internal IT work at the same firm as a plus. And when you get 20 years, like it or not (and I don't!) there is age discrimination.

Net - there are lots of new jobs for talented new people, but it's wrong to assume that people losing their jobs can naturally fit into them.