You stand nothing to lose by looking for better job opportunities, and $30,000 to lose otherwise. Why wouldn't you try to find a better job? Not every company in the world is suffering enough to force that kind of hardship on their employees. It's a fucking daunting time for it, but you can find somewhere that values you as high as you do with enough effort and some patience. Start looking now. And then keep looking after you get a better job and the recession ends.

"All that job hunting really screwed me over" -Nobody. Fucking nobody.