Whereas, my advice to you is to “look outside the boxes.”   Both the “I am a code-monkey developer” box, and the “I am a Perl developer” box.

While I did write that paragraph to grab your attention, I did not write it to be desparaging of anyone here, nor of how (I know ...) many people here describe themselves.   I did write it to those people who are entirely accustomed to those “six-figure jobs” until they lose them ... which they are confident will never happen to them until, as in your case, it does.   I think that this just might include most people here.   It is quite distressing how many engagements I walk into where the entire staff is green.   There had recently been “a reorganization.”   The people responsible for it were idiots.   The people responsible for it got bonuses ...

If your forté is “writing computer source-code,” then you need to make it your business to know as many programming languages and tools as you can ... and to constantly be learning more.   You cannot hitch your wagon to any language, nor any platform, and today expect that esoteric knowledge to carry you all the way to white hair.   (Not-so many years ago, folks dreamed the same fantasies about ISPF and COBOL ...)   You cannot expect to be writing “AJAX-driven web-sites front-ending a MySQL database” for too many more years at all.

Don’t limit yourself.   Over the course of my own career, I have written professional code (and been paid for it) in over twenty-five different languages, and, believe it or not, I became quite used to switching at-will from one to another.   Even if you enjoy being “a developer” and wish to continue “designing, writing and debugging systems of source-code,” there is in fact nothing tying you to “Perl.”   Think outside the box.   Think o-u-t-s-i-d-e the box!   (Your future depends on it, now.)

Avoid being too long in any one market vertical.   (For instance, “health care” and “insurance” are the wrong places to be in the United States right now.)   If you are perceived as being only a technical expert, especially if only in one segment (Perl ...), then just remember that someone out there who really doesn’t understand what you do for the company considers you to be very expen$ive.

And there will be ever-increasing competition. As shown in this WeWorkRemotely post, an earnest start-up called The Launch Academy, having taught about 100 students per year the last two years in its classrooms, is now confidently saying [to its investors] that it will train 10,000 aspiring developers online this year.   They probably will do it, and their graduates expensive certificate holders will snag plenty of (even ...) “Perl jobs,” yes, in direct competition with you, yes, in spite of all that you know compared to them.   There are still plenty of code-writers who get paid in rupees and who walk home in mud.   (And plenty other fine Indian professionals of the highest order ... I am not being racist here.)

Or, someone might successfully sell someone else on the idea that “the legacy system” (the very one that’s paying you six figures ...) is obsolete, and that, oh-by the-by, by getting rid of the thing, they can afford to lay you off reduce their costs.   All of these things happen.   A lot.   They’re crazy.   Yes, they are.   They have no idea how much this will actually cost them.   Right you are.   Now, go pack your cubicle.

How do you counter this?   By gaining diverse experience in programming tools (not just Perl); by finding ways to leverage what you now know (Perl) into a chance to learn something new; and by broadening your sales pitch (yes, you have a sales-pitch, because yes, you are selling ...) to include more skills of demonstrable business-value that appeal to the non-geeks who have problems and who have money to spend on solving them.   By cultivating people at every job you have ever had, who will speak well of you.   (Not just your boss.)

Since you find yourself out of a job, take anything you can find anywhere.   Make it a little game ... a game separate profession called:   selling.   “How many ways can I sell the Fuller Brushes that are in my box, to whoever might be in that next house?”   Any manager who works with computers has some problem that you can address, if only you can sell them on the idea that you’re the one (among hundreds).

And go read a little, red, book:   The Little Red Book on Selling.   The experience of today’s “itinerant self-employed machinist skilled laborer” has plenty of historic parallels, which are not necessarily pretty.   There used to be people who could build a working steam locomotive from ingots, and who routinely did.   Their skills, gained over half a lifetime ... were ... in great ... demand ...   They had to adapt.   A lot of social historians wrote some really interesting (and, very alarming) books about their experience, which many of you might find to be disturbingly relevant.

Now, after those of you who will, have all cast your obligatory downvotes against “his latest crazy rant” ... just go back and think about it.