How would you interpret this sentence?
He believes I have a very large problem, does Mr. Myers. Things really do not look good regarding my position with the State Department. I’m about to be in the same boat with Truman, he said. Hunting a new job.
“Oh, well, it’s too bad. A lot of it going around.” I decided to play it contrite, to satisfy this fellow. No need to tell him I hadn’t worked for the State Department in years, and had no intention of ever doing so again.
“Except for us gumshoes,” he said with a chuckle. “Our job security is A-okay.”

How would you interpret this sentence: A lot of it going around?
How would you interpret the phrase “go around” here?
PS: the narrator was a foreigner in the US. And at that time, US government was cleaning foreigners out of the government.
Thanks! And this excerpt is taken from The Lacuna by Kingsolver.

Question

How would you interpret this sentence?
He believes I have a very large problem, does Mr. Myers. Things really do not look good regarding my position with the State Department. I’m about to be in the same boat with Truman, he said. Hunting a new job.
“Oh, well, it’s too bad. A lot of it going around.” I decided to play it contrite, to satisfy this fellow. No need to tell him I hadn’t worked for the State Department in years, and had no intention of ever doing so again.
“Except for us gumshoes,” he said with a chuckle. “Our job security is A-okay.”

How would you interpret this sentence: A lot of it going around?
How would you interpret the phrase “go around” here?
PS: the narrator was a foreigner in the US. And at that time, US government was cleaning foreigners out of the government.
Thanks! And this excerpt is taken from The Lacuna by Kingsolver.

Answer

"A lot of it going around" is a phrase that's used to express that something is common or is happening a lot. An example would be with illness when someone says "I'm sick" and someone could respond "there's a lot of that going around" meaning that a lot of people are getting sick. So in your excerpt, he said that he's going to be "hunting a new job" and the response is there's "a lot of that going around" meaning that a lot of people are in the same position and are also "hunting a new job."