In December of 2019 it would be hard for everyone since COVID would ramp up, business shut down, and hiring freezes were in affect. It didn’t matter the degree you had.

By June 2020 the tech market was hot again, that's 3 months of hiring pause, not 2 years like OP said.

Geology isn't really "the tech market". Extraction continued at a record pace but exploration stopped almost completely, which is where the degree-expecting jobs are.

I mean my degrees are physics w/math-minor and geology

There should be a large number of jobs you could take on with a physics degree (although most are more math than actual physics). Any technical role in tech, actuary in insurance cos, quant trading roles, etc. How did you not find a job in 2 years?

Of course I say this assuming you're based in the US - the European job market for technical people is much, much worse than the US.

Well it was August 2009 for one thing.

For another: physics/math isn't a stepping stone to technical roles. Physics from ivy league/new ivy is. A B.A. in English from brown is closer to a quant job than a physics degree from New Mexico Tech is. Hell at least NMT is, in the non austerity days, a path into a defense lab. There's half a dozen of state schools (in new mexico alone) offering STEM degrees that most people don't even know are schools.