From theater director to cheese expert: Displaced workers in some industries switch careers to stay afloat

January 30, 2021

With close to 1 million people still filing for first-time unemployment benefits every week, displaced workers in industries like travel, hospitality and entertainment are finding that they have to reorient their professional skills — and in some cases, their entire career trajectories — to keep making money during the pandemic. If this sounds like a drastic move, the workers making these changes say these are drastic times.

“This is a different kind of recession from the Great Recession,” said Maria Heidkamp, director of the New Start Career Network at Rutgers University. “We’re seeing a lot of older people who are dropping out of the labor market, and women who are facing child care issues. We don’t have a precedent for this,” she said.

NBC News, January 28, 2021

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