After investing heavily in education(at least 2 or 3 decades) in hope for a decent career, people become over-qualified or redundant for the industry. Either there aren't sufficient positions available, or they're already filled by lower paid FTs. Easily 60% or more of our graduates turn to jobs that are either irrelevant to their qualifications, or less relevant.
When times are tough, careers come to a halt as companies go on a refrenchment exercise during the down times. In response, the victims are told to invest more into re-training, so they can settle for lesser paying jobs that cannot fulfill their monthly fixed costs/commitments (ie: housing/car installment, insurance, dependant upkeep etc)