Mary Lebourveau, a fired cafeteria supervisor for Motorola Inc, picked a new occupation by looking at the want ads.
"The only thing I saw were medical-related jobs," said Lebourveau, 53, who had spent 23 years with Motorola in Plantation, Florida. She took advantage of a state job-training program to sign up for classes in medical billing, expecting no letup in demand because of the elderly population in Florida.
The switch may pay off for the economy as well as Lebourveau, who hopes to start at about US$12 an hour and expects, with experience, to double her earnings. Even as the unemployment rate climbed to a five-year high of 5.4 percent last month, some skilled jobs go begging. Filling those positions may keep the economy more productive when it recovers.
"To some extent, a recession is painful, but recessions can also serve a long-term useful purpose in that they shed excess labor in particular industries and redirect those resources into other needed areas like medical care," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co in Minneapolis. "Retrained workers would add to future economic growth and productivity."
In the Dallas area, workers who lost jobs in the computer industry are applying to become teachers, helping ease a shortage in math and science instructors. Eli Lilly & Co, the pharmaceutical company, said last month it plans to hire more than 5,000 salespeople by 2004, an increase of almost 40 percent.
America's Job Bank, an Internet site developed by the US Department of Labor and state and private organizations, lists more than 1 million job openings nationwide.
Almost 90,000 openings await people with skills in health care. Those with administrative and office skills such as word processing are next in demand with almost 71,000 openings, followed by 66,000 unfilled engineering and architectural jobs.
Lebourveau can make the transition because of financial help through a state-run, federally sponsored program designed to help workers who lost their jobs through competition from Mexican or Canadian imports. The government pays for as much as two years of approved training and 52 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits after the initial 26 weeks runs out.
Congress is looking at ways to enhance training as part of a stimulus bill to help workers through a slowdown that was aggravated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The Republican version includes grants to states that may be used for health costs and job training.
Lebourveau attends the Atlantic Technical Center, one of three vocational-technical schools run by Broward County, Florida, public schools. Enrollment at the center is now at a record 4,700 students.
"No one is looking for a handout," said Susan Tretakis, a counselor for the business technology and health science education classes at the school in Coconut Creek. "They just want training so they can move up in their lives." Viola De Witt, a 35-year-old former marine, is studying at the technical center to become a computer programmer. She was fired as a field merchandising manager by Tracfone Wireless Inc, a unit of Mexico's America Movil SA.
"People weren't buying anything so they just decided to, what they call `reorganize,' and they just 'reorganized' me right out of there," De Witt said.
Her training will take between one year and 18 months to complete, depending on the number of computer languages she ends up wanting to master. De Witt has her sights on a job as an Oracle programmer paying about US$70,000 a year.
Employment statistics suggest that demand has shifted.
In the 12 months ending in September, 2.7 million jobs were created among 27 US industries and 2.9 million were lost in 24, according to a study by the Employment Policy Foundation, a Washington-based research group. The largest gain, an increase of 511,000 jobs, was among workers with vocational training or certificates, the report showed.
"The modern economy is still facing a critical need for people with skills," said Ron Bird, chief economist at the foundation. "Learn new skills however you can do it."
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