> there's still a lot of work to be done
This is huge mistake. Looks like You don't understand enterprise economy and recession.
In reality, enterprise economy divided to two semi-connected parts:
1. making (sell) new products (new and existing services).
2. support of existing products (services), support subscribers.
Part 2 is near constant when recession (in reality it slow declining, but not much, typical 5% decline per year for US large enterprises).
And by definition, part 2 grow, when have activities on part 1.
But! By definition, activities of part 1 need investments, for development and for marketing.
Exists one exclusion - when Your competitor fail, You could try to gather his customers. This could be very cheap. Sometimes You will decide to pay money, to somebody, so You could avoid these customers, because now You don't have free resources and don't want to invest (read next).
Mean, to grow business, You should invest something, but when recession, money become expensive (fees are raising, inflation happen, but without grow), so You must cut costs, and first thing doing typical business - stop all development, and cut marketing activity.
You are partially right, support is also huge, but it cannot substitute development.
And by definition, development and support are very different types of work, so when recession, people must learn different things than when grow.
Sure, not all people learn well, and learning is very time-consuming process, so appear gap on market, between supply and demand. And because of this gap, appears illusion of lot work.