My students are in applied micro and have lists of 180 jobs even with a ton of higher ranked places scratched off their list. The first time I was on the market I applied to 150 jobs, and got 3 offers. They were to 3 places I hadn't heard of, but were all were to places I was excited about. I'd encourage you to hedge on being risk averse now, but to each his own. But impose any geographic constraint and you'll narrow down things a ton.
Is it a down year? Maybe. The private sector is probably hiring a ton. But I bet the government isn't hiring that many. Nationwide, I bet econ majors are down a bit, because enrollment in universities is declining a bit due to demographics, a good economy, and fewer international students coming to the US. There's also the existential threat to econ majors of growing data science programs and departments. We aren't hiring for the first time in several years, partly because we had several successful searches a couple years in a row, but possibly also because of our slow down in majors which peaked a couple of years ago. Hopefully we'll be back on the market next year.
