Supply and demand is a heartless taskmaster but if you cant build it into your plans quickly then you are destined to be a victim rather than a survivor.
Pilots are rather like Musicians or Actors. We are only neccessary as long as there are Passengers/Freight/Students.
Nobody is indispensible. Everyone can be replaced.
At the same time, I dont believe that small employers want to foster an atmosphere of fear loathing and paranoia which will contribute to them going out of business just as surely as some of their larger brethren.
Be keen, show willing in the face of adversity, be resourceful and experiment with new ways of organising your life to be in a position to grab chances as they may occur.
Think creatively. There are many instructors and no money.....there are many pupils with seemingly no money....and all of you want to fly Right?
There are many aeroplanes sitting on the ground costing money right?
If you all got together and instructed for free you would fly the wings of the a/c to the owners delight(also reducing the hourly costs considerably).
My guess is that you could be doing PPl's at US rates or cheaper. By interlining IMC and IR students on the same days you eliminate weather related groundings.
Training continues at night(why stop?)and IR approaches into the wee hours of the morning, where, bleary eyed you emerge at Coventry to refuel and hand the a/c over to your chums in the midlands who are going to do the same all the next day.
Now find a tame FTO and a base for the Pprune Flight Training network.
The Lunatics could thus take over the asylum.
Dont know if this would work but it costs nothing to speculate.