I did what you're describing and it worked out well for me, but YMMV. Here's what I did:

I got an undergrad degree in physics, and was hired right out of school by a government contractor. My only hard skill from the degree was coding in LabVIEW, something I never have done in the workplace. Arguably my only real use in my first job was to be a person who submitted a timesheet that could be billed as a person with a STEM degree.

I changed jobs for a much better contractor where I did a lot of "system engineering" style analysis with MatLab, which I mostly learned on the job, and eventually moved into Python which I learned entirely on the job. Python really resonated with me, particularly using it for Data Science applications. I got a Masters degree in Applied Physics from a highly renowned school taking after hours courses that my job paid for. Most of the courses had no conceivable application to my day job.

I eventually was hired away from the contracting world and am a Data Engineer for a private company.

The thing a physics degree truly demonstrates is the ability to learn difficult concepts, think analytically, and have the math to back it up. If you go this route, you'll kind of be a generalist right out of the gate and need to be open to trying a bunch of new things to figure out what works for you. A master's degree certainly helps, and learning a useful programming language really helps. Be prepared to start somewhere as an analyst, and build from there.

No. A charming personality and connections is the only thing that will get you a good job. Otherwise it's luck and a numbers game

cries in early 2000's Biology degree

Yeah, you can get an ABET engineering degree for marine technology that will let you work on-shore, or on ships anywhere in the world. A lot of union jobs too.

For chemistry? No.

The most common job track for someone with a BS in chemistry is something on the analytical side. Think: contract lab that processes environmental or pharmaceutical samples. All you really need to know how to do is press some buttons and follow detailed instructions. So - the work is both exacting and boring. And to find this unfun job - you will be in direct competition with every biology major in your region. And there are hoards of them. And the hiring manager will be one of them. If you can score a job, be prepared for the low pay that goes along with a plentiful labor pool, along with the frustrations of working with people that don't have the ideal frame of reference for talking through problems.

Other options?

In my area, microbiologists are in higher demand, so I think someone might get by with a BS. Standard bio majors seem to have had an idea of becoming naturalists or park rangers after graduation, so many didn't specialize. They can count birds or frogs and are still acting weird about having to memorize the Krebs Cycle, but aren't really up to speed on aseptic technique or all that other micro stuff.

Physics? I can't even imagine.

Engineering is interesting. 30 years ago some people came to my highschool to talk to the "indoor kids." They were pitching the idea that "the engineers of today are 30-40 something baby boomers who have high paying jobs that they absolutely love! In the next 5-10 years we will be facing a crisis as they all retire early, and GenX could easily be called the Baby Crunch.* There's no one to replace these engineers who are living the dream! You're looking at a great opportunity if you study engineering." A good portion of my class took that advice. Bwah-hah-hah-haa! No one retired early. Great pay + great job = early retirement? No.

No engineering grads that I knew got a decent job because there were no openings and a high number of qualified applicants. Companies did find some cheap engineers, though. The ones I know now (GenX and Millennial) found other careers and swallowed the bitterness.

I've heard that something similar happened in the 2010s with law degrees. In the 2000s it seemed like every 30-yo with a crappy job was studying nursing. Point being - if someone is saying that there is a desperate need for workers with Skill X and that they make a great living, it means that companies don't want to pay current market rate for Skill X. They want you to take out loans to train yourselves for the skill they want at the price they want.

*Demographics. In the US the birthrate fell dramatically in the '60s and '70s. Before Doug Coopland came up with a marketable name for it, GenX was being called a Baby Crunch. Reasons? Birth control. Oil crisis. Vietnam War. Boomers waiting a bit longer to start their families. Reasons.

Several states have licensed geologists and environmental scientists.

You can also get a degree in biology and become a certified wetland delineator with some minor additional education.

For physics specifically, a bachelor’s degree probably won’t be enough to get a job in physics.

You might be able to get a job as a technician in a lab, but they typically will look for people with a master’s degree for those roles. With just a bachelor’s , you’d need to get your foot in the door by already having some relevant experience, which is a possibility if you get some research experience in college and pivot that into an internship or something. But it would definitely require effort and luck.

I'm going back for a degree. I'll be over 40 when I graduate. I found that a lack of formal education was a filter for a lot of positions.

I wrecked my back a few years ago, and that made going back into heavy equipment or high access positions pretty dangerous. So I started looking outside my field and what I found was basically any bachelor's degree open doors.

Bioinformatics may suit, especially if you go hard at understanding biochem. In fact all the Informatics (Medical, Chemical, Geo, ...) have good prospects, and at the very least will get you quickly past the bottom IT rungs and likely in interesting places. Mathematics (perhaps Computational) is surprisingly versatile and very much in demand if you can be creative about presenting yourself, you've proved you can handle some of the most complex shit out there.

But it's probably worth making a mini research project out of exploring your options, weeks spent now might be very rewarding long term.

No, as much as high school guidance counselors try to tell you different, there's nothing magical about any STEM degree that will reliably get you a job.

For most jobs, the "filter" is getting the job itself. Not having a relevant degree might prevent you from getting a job, but having the degree doesn't mean you will be selected. There are exceptions like getting into medical school really sets you on a pathway where as long as you stick with it, you should end up with a job, bit that's cause it's really hard (and expensive) to get into med school, so that part is the "filter".

You might hear of a particular skillet being really hot that guarantees you a job, and that does happen, but it is really ephemeral. By the time you get a 4 year degree, the landscape may have changed.

You can absolutely get a job with a 4 year hard science degree, but you can't just go to class, get all A's and step into a job. You need to be connected throughout the process. Also keep in mind what type of job you want to do, and where it is geographically. You might have good job prospects with a geology degree and fossil fuel expertise, but the jobs might be in undesirable locations.

It's shitty, but employers tend to use an expensive degree as a form of prescreening. You can get an HR job or similar with a bachelors in literature.

Or is it just the hard truth of all hard sciences that you’re pretty much worthless with just a four-year degree, from a job perspective?

Where did you get that idea? Engineers generally only have a four-year degree, and they famously make good money.

It's not really about the degree. It's the degree program that gets you in the door to the research and network with the people in the field. So, you could get your foot in the door some other way, and end up working without the degree.

IT is really the most practical, because you don't need a lot of experience. But you could also work IT for someone doing science, whether that's a biotech company, a university doing research, or a government lab.

I've got a bachelor's degree in geoscience, which got me a job without issues - in IT.