At the peak of the unemployeement in this country ALPA stated that almost 36% of the professional pilots in this country were without jobs. I'm pretty sure that there was not enough other aviation employeement to cover all that. Plus as one of those people, with a masters degree and a clean employement record I made a serious try to find work outside of the industry. I could find nothing that paid more than 40k a year. And I looked hard. We as pilots like to think our skill set is valued in the world. But employers only see no applicable experience.