Was it really that bad? I did not have the opportunity to go to university, but I did come out of high school right after the burst and while I wasn't making $100K for just knowing HTML, I was able to do alright. And by the time the market started to recover, I had some amazing experience under my belt allowing me to leverage the upswing in ways someone just graduating wouldn't be able to do.
Depends where you live, like anything else, but in California there was a really bad stretch around late 2000 to early 2002 where it was pretty damn difficult to find new work as a developer.
Even companies doing relatively well were so worried about the future that hiring freezes were the norm across the board.
If you were really exceptional and really well connected or had very attractive experience, you could still find something, but it was certainly a very difficult time for a lot of people I know working in the industry in CA around that time.
