After Grim Employment Report, Obama Stresses Green Jobs

Switching Industries to Stay Employed

Smith said that after being laid off, he purposely concentrated his job search outside of gourmet food companies.

Travis Smith, a comptroller for the Utah division of Jason's Deli.

(Courtesy Travis Smith)

"High-end selling items are dropping off," he said. "[If] someone has an option of buying something of similar value at less cost, they're going to choose that."

Joining Jason's Deli, he said, made sense because it's a growing company.

Smith isn't the only one switching industries to stay employed.

The health care industry has seen consistent job growth throughout the recession and that's something that helped Kristina Beatty, 27, make up her mind: The Pennsylvania woman left her job at a YWCA earlier this year to become a human resources coordinator at Providence Point, a new retirement community in Scott Township, Pa.

"I had a feeling it'd be pretty secure right now compared to other fields affected by the crazy economy," Beatty said.

Providence Point held a job fair late last month to fill some 200 vacant positions.

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"Residents are beginning to move in, so we needed to staff it," said Maryclare Poprik, the director of public relations for Baptist Home Society, which owns the retirement community.

Meeting the needs of the country's aging population is a large part of what's driving growth in the health care industry, experts agree.

The economy, of course, has taken a toll -- hospitals, for instance, are seeing fewer elective surgeries and tighter budgets -- but not enough to stop the sector's expansion, Challenger said. Americans will continue to spend on health care, he added.

"It is one of those core things: If you're sick, you're sick," he said. "You spend your money when times are tight on those things you can't do without."

Sometimes a company can be expanding even if its sector is flagging. For instance, while the publishing industry continues to lose jobs, digital publisher Zinio -- which produces digital versions of magazines like Cosmopolitan and Billboard -- recently added 10 new employees.

After Jason Desmarais, 23, of South Salem, N.Y., got a pink slip from his job in finance, he found work as an account manager at Zinio.

"I wanted to be with an industry that's growing, not declining," said Desmarais. "Digital publishing obviously is a growing opportunity. That's one of the reasons I took the job."