The economy definitely makes it tough to find a job at the moment! Your friends' experience with unsuccessful job-hunting sounds very familiar. The new direction is working for a local government and basically being the person you talk to to get licences, permits, and other documents like that. It's pretty much a dead end in terms of career (you can move horizontally but not vertically, I guess), but it sounds chill, pays well enough, has high job security, and sounds a lot better than making money for random corporations (most of my current options include some form of marketing, which I hate)