I have been contemplating this for a bit.

Where have all the gaming jobs gone from 8 years ago?
I remember when this site was filled with job postings from the industry.
Now there are virtually none. I see this across the industry. From places like the bay area/Seattle craigslist to more industry specific sites like here at gamedev.

Look up some stats, it is frightening. Any thoughts?

Remember that thing called the global financial crisis? Games tend to take about a year (or more) to make, so the effects of the crash weren't apparent until a year later when existing contracts finished and there was no new work to be found. It caused a crash in the games industry where hundreds of studios and thousands of jobs disappeared worldwide. The industry is still recovering from it, and has been built back up quite differently.

The big publishers (EA/Activision/etc) used to contract out a lot of work to mid-sized independent studios, but post-GFC they almost exclusively only work with studios that they own. These studios tend to be quite large and centralize a lot of jobs in a single place. A lot of the people who lost their jobs during the GFC have started new "indie" studios, which are quite small and can't afford conventional recruitment methods. On the upside, a lot of these smaller startups are doing quite well, and many are working on original IP rather than the old work-for-hire model, which in the long run can provide a lot more independence and stability.

Re: The job listings on GameDev.net. That will improve over time. We're working with partners to provide more information about jobs in the industry.