This was never really the -norm- in tech either. Yes, a small number of very talented, very well-connected software engineers with well-known schools or companies on their resume, could probably leave a job one week and have multiple offers next week, but come on... This has never really been the experience of the vast majority of tech workers.
Sure, if you survey Stanford graduates, working in a hot domain, in top companies Silicon Valley, you're going to conclude that getting jobs has always been easy "in tech."
It's not the norm for most professional jobs to need to study content unrelated to the actual responsibilities for your role, and going through 3-5+ stages of interviews just to get a thumbs up. no other sector is studying interview questions on the side. they either have a standardized license exam to vet their technical expertise, can do a contract/trial period to show their chops ("contractors" in tech aren't really a "downgrade"/less compensated role like in other industries), or otherwise have testing that closely mirrors their day to day.
>I expect very few of them have taken fast food jobs which absolutely happened in 2001.
I was in elementary for 2001, so I can't comment much on 2001 or 2009. I have indeed heard some of those people consider 2023/4 to be even worse for the market, however. Just "being good at your job" isn't enough these days, where it sounds like that sufficed in 2001, and the study space for 2009 was at least manageable. But that's secondhand accounts.
But what you're probably seeing is a reaction to the end of a period when, assuming at least a pulse and some vague familiarity with computers (and maybe some ability to navigate tech interviews), you could walk out of a job on Friday and have multiple offers within a week.
This was basically never the norm with most professional jobs that could take months of job-hunting with no guarantee of a higher salary or not needing to move. I was very lucky over time and it always depended on professional connections.
A lot of people got accustomed to a period that was nothing like the historical norm. I expect very few of them have taken fast food jobs which absolutely happened in 2001.