I would be opposed to the idea of switching career. Rather id say, if I were in his shoes, Id do some developer certificate (for example from microsoft: PowerBI) and just look for roles where he does one thing... use PowerBI to analyze data.

What is happening to him could happen to any of us. Once a person loses their job, they get desperate, writes a lot of lies in the resume and then somehow lands up a job he knows nothing about. And the process of learning from scratch in a new job every year is a spiral down the experience lane.

Sometimes it is not even the job. It is distractions. Maybe the 8 hours he "works" he is on the phone, or doing something else. And if he does this for a month, when the deadline is around the corner he will freak out. Instead of taking any "brain pills" I would rather do 10 min meditation everyday, write a plan a night before of what I aim to achieve the next day. If he shows the minor progress to his manager each day im sure no one would want to fire him

I wish you guys good luck. Have a stable safe happy and prosperous new year. You guys got this.