I think he was drawing a sarcastic comparison, not making an actual suggestion. The former doesn't require that there actually _be_ underemployed programmers
And that was also my point. There's no economic reality requiring programmers look at less-ideal employment right now. Anecdotally, I did work retail for a couple years after the first dot-com crash. It was very eye-opening and educational in a lot of ways; no regrets, would do it again if I had to.
