Back in the old days, CX pilots came from a fairly small range of countries with Britain and Australia well represented. Americans less so due to relations with communist China. It was sometimes described as an old colonial club, and membership was hard to obtain. With the "A" scale they could afford to very fussy about who they took and if your face didn't fit then you weren't accepted. If you got in then it was a career airline and you stayed until retirement.
Airlines in the Middle East couldn't be so choosey as even though the money was good, the location and lifestyle weren't so desirable. Gulf Air and Saudi Arabian needed to have a much longer list of acceptable countries in order to attract the talent they needed.
CX has simply joined the list of airlines you can go to if you can't get a decent job at home. When air travel returns it may another contract job, similar to Turkish or Vietnam, if the airline survives as an independent entity.