The various regulatory bureaucracies of the US were, until the start of last year, considered some of the best places to work as a subject matter expert in very nuanced and advanced fields.

These jobs have traditionally been good jobs in terms of stability, benefits (compared to peers the US which is low compared to other countries), and a lot of the intangibles like "flexibility". They usually are not highly paid (compared to peers in the US, who are paid highly compared to other countries).

I'm making this point because it's important to note that most of these subject matter experts have not been working in their positions for decades because it's lucrative, they are working there cause they've actually believed in the work they do. Think people working for the FDA, NIH, etc.

Like you said you don't recover from that. These aren't people who can give a two week notice and train someone new in that time. They make 5 year plans for training replacements like apprentices, or they switch to a part time position as a contractor to fade out as they teach the next generation. We are going to be completely rebuilding so many of our institutions for literally decades, and many people will die because of it.