Software Development hiring is getting tougher and getting laid off means having a hard time finding a new position in this market. You may wish to be laid off from Dell, but consider the alternative to that. If you're an older developer, I can imagine that is another level of difficulty
"If you've NOT gone to a top university, NOT worked at a top company, NOT studied a rigorous language/analytical field I list above, + NOT built some impressive publicly viewable software on your own, I'd say: "Stay OUT of software engineering! Seek a non-tech job. The market is too tough now."