WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

Today: New careers, new dreams

Saturday: Help for those on the edge of homelessness

Sunday: When will the jobs come back?

In the two years since the start of the Great Recession, the national unemployment rate has doubled and there are now 15.3 million people around the country without jobs.

Although Durham and the Triangle area have often boasted of having the lowest unemployment rates in the state, the area has not been immune. There are now 10,986 people in Durham County without work and countless more who've been jobless for so long, they've dropped out of the labor force.

In this three-day series, we will look at how different workers have struggled with layoffs and blazed new trails for themselves, and how organizations are helping people whose lives have been turned upside down. We also will try to answer the questions: Where are the jobs and when will we get them back?

By Monica Chen

mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636

DURHAM -- Several days a week during lunch, Steve Pruner smiles and waves at passing cars from his hot dog cart, "Dogs Gone Wild," perched in front of the Social Security Administration building.

Every now and then, a car stops and the driver calls out an order. "OK, coming right up," Pruner says.

Pruner, a self-employed corporate recruiter, began selling hot dogs after seeing the number of jobs in his portfolio -- mostly from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and contract research organizations -- drop by a staggering 90 percent. He had 100 to 200 jobs lined up for candidates last year. This winter, that has dwindled to fewer than 20.

"The companies have too much fear and trepidation to hire right now," Pruner said.

"Nobody ever went broke selling hot dogs," he added. "It's either do this or starve."

Economists may proclaim the recession is over, but that's not how the picture is looking to workers on the ground.

The number of jobs available has slowed to a trickle since the start of the recession in December 2007, causing unemployment rates in the Triangle to balloon to record heights, surpassing any year since current unemployment records began being kept in the 1970s. Top employers in the Research Triangle Park continue to lay off workers, and the Durham metropolitan area lost a record 8,100 jobs last year, with the heaviest losses occurring in manufacturing and professional and business services.

As of December, 73,570 unemployed workers were looking for jobs in the Triangle, 10,986 of them in Durham County.

As a result, workers who've lost the jobs they have counted on for years are turning to new ways to make ends meet. They are honing new skills, rediscovering old passions and starting new businesses, which could grow into companies able to employ more people in the future.

Kenric Cromartie, 35, had been a trucker since 1997, making a comfortable living and being the primary breadwinner for his family and two children.

Two years ago, his employer in Morrisville merged with another company. The deal brought in new employees with more seniority. Cromartie was put on call own an as-needed basis, and the work slowed. By March 2009, he was laid off.

"I was very sad," Cromartie said. "It is a big difference. You think you're pretty much secure, and then to start back over from scratch, it's challenging."

Learning HVAC

After he was laid off, Cromartie enrolled in a program at Durham Technical Community College for HVAC. The idea, he said, was that since everyone has heating and air conditioning, the field might be more recession-proof than the transportation industry.

Cromartie started with an introductory course. But by now, he has set his sights on an associate degree, with the hope that by the time he graduates in 2011, the economy will have improved.

To support him through this transition, his family has trimmed budgets and cut back on some favorite activities, like dining out and big vacations. Cromartie is searching for an apprenticeship in HVAC, but is still keeping trucking open as an option.

"There are guys in the class that are working in the [HVAC] field now," Cromartie said. "There's plenty of work out there. But now the market might be getting to be saturated with it as well."

Instructors and administrators at institutions like Durham Tech are rushing to meet the needs of workers like Cromartie, who are trying to transition into new careers. At Durham Tech, there has been high demand for JobsNOW classes, a new program that's now in its second semester.

It offers seven courses ranging from nursing to green landscaping and biotechnology technician. Kelly King, program coordinator for JobsNOW, said there have been 80-100 applications on average for each class of 15-20 students.

"We've seen the interest in them absolutely explode," King said.

"There's a lot of people in need right now, and we simply want to make the transition from one career to the other as seamlessly as possible," he added.

Out of the frying pan

While for Cromartie, life after layoff has become a quest for a recession-proof job, for others, like Rex Tolentino, the reduced job market has offered the opportunity to pursue a childhood passion.

Tolentino, 40, is a former mortgage banker who got his start on Wall Street. After being laid off in 2007, when the subprime mortgage industry imploded, Tolentino and his wife moved to North Carolina, where he found a position as an account executive with a division of Goldman Sachs. But a year later, he was laid off again.

After that, Tolentino said simply, "the opportunity came." He enrolled in the fire academy at Durham Tech

Tolentino had wanted to be a firefighter when he was a child, and after his first live burn in Durham recently, Tolentino said, he knew that he could be a firefighter.

"They always said, 'You'll know whether or not this is for you if you go through this,'" Tolentino said. "And it wasn't fear. It was excitement. It was a certain feeling of ... this is something I could see myself doing."

Tolentino is in the interview process with the Morrisville fire department. He isn't making six figures anymore, but Tolentino said if it hadn't been for the recession, and for the layoffs, he probably would never have become a firefighter.

"You're always just a number in the sales game and I always hated that," Tolentino said.

Getting laid off was a blessing in disguise, he added. "It was always an option on my mind but I didn't think it would've ever come to fruition. I thought it was a blessing because I get an opportunity to live a dream."

Rays of hope

Chris Allen, a father of three who lives in Chapel Hill, is also embarking on a new career, starting his own business after working in the corporate world for 21 years.

For Allen, mixed in with the hope and excitement of starting a new business are the fear and doubt that comes with being on unfamiliar ground.

When Allen took a buyout package from Glaxo-SmithKline in 2008, he had worked for the company for 21 years, working his way up to director of the IT department, where he managed a large staff with team members in Research Triangle Park, Philadelphia, London and India.

These days though, Allen is managing a department of one, slowly building up his new solar installation company, RTP Solar, by himself from home.

Allen has great hopes for his new business. It's in a field that he has long been interested in, and he believes there is long-term growth potential in the green industry.

However, it's daunting to build a new business from scratch, and there are days when he wonders whether he should've left GSK when he did. The solar installation market has been slow, Allen said, because people struggling with their own finances currently regard it as a luxury.

"When I had the chance to leave GSK, I jumped at the chance to give me the opportunity to get into solar," he said. "I'm glad I did, but at the same time, I'm not sure I made the right decision from a dollars-and-cents perspective."

"I really love what I do. Some days, I'm doing really well and I think, 'Wow, I have my own business,'" Allen added. "Other days, it's not going so well and I think back on that huge salary."

For Allen, it has also been a blessing, but a mixed one. He no longer has to worry about being laid off and said some former colleagues are now asking, half-jokingly, if he might have a job for them soon.

"When you have your own small business, you can do it 10 to 15 years. With a big corporation, you're there one day and boom, you're gone the next," Allen said.

"I have more control of my destiny," he added, "but I don't know if that means more security."