When you've devoted a great deal of time and treasure toward obtaining qualifications that are supposed to lead to a more prosperous life than what being a sous-chef in a hotel in the slums can ever possibly afford you, then yes, it is tragic.
For what it's worth, I knew my degree by itself was going to be worthless; it was my intention to go on toward an advanced degree. When I lost my job, I tried to shop that degree around, and like these people, I found that there were no takers. In fact, these people did better than I did; they landed something, anything at all. I had to go in for a year's worth of vocational training before anyone would even look at me. I now make enough money to pay down my debts (barely) and not much else.