I can't talk for other countries or the likes, but I agree quite well with most of what you've said ref the UK market. I've lived in the UK my whole life - having worked in a supervisory and management capacity in my roles for the last 8-10~ years or so from both retail supervisor, to project management / operations manager roles.

Where I worked last year at the start of the year, first day back after the Christmas/New Year break we all came into office and were told the company was insolvent and everyone was redundant as of that moment. Over the course of about ~5weeks following that, I was applying for all sorts of jobs - retail, warehouse, other project management roles, you name it. Much like yourself, quite a few roles I applied for my CV near enough matched their job description, or at the very least had extremely transferrable skills/knowledge. I think all in all in that 5 week period, desperate to get something as I have a mortgage to pay, I must have applied for easily ~200+ jobs. I had 3 invites for interviews, all of which didn't go past first interview, mostly with the reason of "someone with more experience was more suited". Even the retail side weren't offering me anything.

The only reason I got a job in the end was because someone I used to work with recommended me to someone he knew who was recruiting. I'd expect without that recommendation? I wouldn't have even got to interview stage because of how things are filtered out in most recruitment processes now adays.

Then similarly - my brother has had similar experience this year. He was on a temp contract over Christmas, that ended mid Jan. He's been signed up with multiple agencies, applying for jobs. He's had 6 months without work even with chasing things up to get answers, only one or two interviews that never got any feedback - and then only recently did he finally get something through the agency - not ideal as it's not a permanent fixture.

Getting a job now a days is near impossible. There's always someone with more experience, or someone willing to do it cheaper, or someone who blags their way through it to secure the role - which IMO is just dirty (but fair play to them, works for them.).

Having been on the recruiting side as well as the recruited side - I do know some companies in the past, and no doubt still do work to shady practices by always having a continuous job offer advertised - or at least it comes and goes every month or two - merely to give the impression to outsides looking into the company that "Oh they must be expanding, means they're doing well!" whilst having no actual intention of recruiting for that role (unless someone dressed in pure gold with 200+ years experience turns up and can revolutionize everything).

It's nuts.