Cycles
I sympathise with the predicament of anyone who has invested so much time and money into training for a career and hasn't secured a flying job. I can't think of any other career choice which demands so much effort and yet offers so little guaranteed reward. Even in Football you only give your time and usually little money to train but aviation is not like that.
It isn't the fault of the airlines however that they suffer this dreadful boom bust cycle every ten years, I am certain if they could they'd love to find a way out of it - it is a crisis of monumental proportions in American, Aer Lingus, BA, Midland, Virgin etc. Sadly, if you want to look for reasons why the industry suffers these oscillations you have to point the finger at the middle East problem more often than not eg. the oil crisis of 1974, first Gulf War in 1991, the twin towers in 2001, the Gulf War in 2003 have shaken the industry to the core.
On the up-side more and more people want to travel and the airlines are leaner and fitter than ever. Couple that with the fact that there are hardly any sponsored cadets in the system and you've got the potential for a huge surge in self-sponsored pilot demand as recovery gathers pace.
Humanity has an increasing passion to travel and explore the world. Lets hope that all of us become the pilots who fly them.
Hang in there buddy,
Desk-pilot