Tech recruiter here. What you are saying fits neatly with my observation that during a bull market the specialists tend to do great, amazing compensation, lots of contracting options.
When the market turns these are the first to be downsized because they are very expensive. The generalists are more sought after because firms try to produce the same output with fewer resources, and for this you need the jack-of-all-trades types.
I've also found that in suitably large enterprisey orgs, the generalists are the first to be let go under a cost crunch because no matter what they do, they have in their stable of people someone else who can do it better. And its very, VERY rare that a generalist is actually DOING more than 1 or 2 things, no matter how many things they CAN be doing.
When the market turns these are the first to be downsized because they are very expensive. The generalists are more sought after because firms try to produce the same output with fewer resources, and for this you need the jack-of-all-trades types.