Job losses, anxiety, and weighing up options

It might not seem like a shock given that I work for a travel-related business that is struggling due to the pandemic, but a few of my coworkers recently lost their jobs because there's just not any inbound tourism happening at the moment. Several others have had their hours downgraded from full time positions to part time positions, with the hope that when things open up again they'll be able to return to normal.

With inbound travel still restricted courtesy of the pandemic, my workplace has had to cut jobs and change other positions from full time to part time roles. 

But therein lies the problem - when is that return to "normal" going to be? I might be a little grouchy right now -- the Olympics are in our midst and thousands of athletes have been arriving in recent weeks, but there's no sign of when average joes will be able to travel again. We get numerous inquiries every week from potential travelers -- many of whom have mentioned they've been fully vaccinated against COVID -- and we still have nothing to tell them apart from "we don't know when borders are set to reopen for travel, and that's the case even if you're vaccinated at this point".

I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of the virus - it's clear that it's highly dangerous, at least to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last 18 months. I hope though that once a higher percentage of the population here has been vaccinated we'll hopefully see some movement on allowing "outsiders" in again. However, this massive unknown of when that will be has everyone sitting with an undercurrent of anxiety, even though I've been told my job is safe until the end of the year when they'll reassess again.

I'm honestly quite nervous about what employment opportunities I have here if my job does end up getting cut. Without fluent Japanese I'm limited in the jobs I can apply for, and unfortunately teaching English just isn't for me as a shy, introverted type (props to all of you who are great at it!).

I keep reminding myself that the end of the year is still 6 months away, give or take, and that things might be better by then. But then I start thinking we've been saying this for the last 18 months -- that it can't possibly be much longer until things normalize...and here we are.