Lucky you. IT / Tech sector is at 6% unemployment and the worst its been since the dotcom bubble burst. Remote work would be awesome. Operations, even Dev-Ops and Business Development level is hard to find for remote, and the market is pretty bad. Haven't seen or noticed what its like for the return to office culture, but, I'm not driving from one computer spending my gas to sit down in front of another computer. Preposterous.
I turned the consulting just to keep my schedule; it's ..an interesting change of pace. I think people are lucky to be having remote work at this moment.
6% unemployment is a pretty normal rate for an economy. Historically the US is usually above 5% [1], and the current rate is 4.2%, so 6% is only slightly above the national rate.
I don't doubt that you've had trouble finding work, but I don't think the unemployment rate is the reason, or even the symptom. Particularly since it sounds like you are looking for remote only, and the ratio of seekers to jobs (a sort of "unemployment" measure, given that people may settle for in-office jobs if they can't find a remote one) for remote software may be very different than a 6% rate.
I turned the consulting just to keep my schedule; it's ..an interesting change of pace. I think people are lucky to be having remote work at this moment.