Spaceman I'm curious have things really changed that much in the aviation job market since you started your training or were you just too ignorant/young/naive back in those days to believe the people who are constantly telling wanabees just how tough it is to land a job?
It is posted on pprune day in day out by those people in the know and with more experience than yourself just what a tough industry it is, so if you had done your research you should have fully known what to expect.... no offence intended but surely it can't have come as a complete surprise to you or anyone else for that matter?
If you really fell for the sales and marketing pitch of a flight training organisation then I do feel sorry for you. I do have some sympathy with people coming straight out of school with little experience of how the world works and racking up £70k of debt without any real appreciation of the value of money because they have secured their loan on mum and dads house. Those people I agree probably do need a little bit more protection than they are currently getting. But in general for anyone who goes down the ATPL route IT IS A GAMBLE and one that should not be taken on lightly..... geeeeeez how many times has that been written in this forum???
Having spent the last 2 years reading the trials and tribulations (and indeed successes.... well done to those who have recently landed jobs) of pprune forumites its strikes me as obvious that you should always have a back-up plan just in case you don't land that job. What was yours Spaceman?
So as us Brits say pull yourself together man, stiff upper lip, stop whinging and get out and do something to improve your situation. If that involves flipping burgers to save up enough money to get an instructors rating that will get you one stage futher up the ladder then go flip burgers... there's no free lunch in any profession these days least of all aviation. Why don't you go out and be proactive to improve your chances rather than blaming everyone else and thinking the world owes you a living.
Good luck anyway, you do have my sympathy even though your moaning is getting a little tiresome. Hopefully next time you post you can tell us a little bit about how you are going about improving your chances rather than just having a go a variety of different organisations that frankly owe you nothing.