Oregon Public Broadcasting

In OPB's series on 'Getting Back To Work,' we've considered students, entrepreneurs, and businesses that appear to be recession-proof.

In this, the last story in our series, Kristian Foden-Vencil looks at a question that faces many people who have lost a job in this economy: Should you retrain or move?

Cory Bierd: "Hi, my name's Cory Bierd. I live in Eugene, Oregon. I'm 38. I've been married for 18 years to my wonderful wife Kay. We have three gorgeous children. Henry, Simon and Olive. They're 10, 7 and 5. And I used to work at Hynix Semi-conductor as a maintenance technician."

Cory Bierd chose retraining -- as a nurse.

Bierd is a big guy: with a shaved head and a goatee. And in addition to his family he loves video games, paint-ball and yard work.

In front of his faded blue mobile home, there's a little fountain. And it's surrounded by some juicy looking strawberries and lush plants.

Cory Bierd: "Children love the strawberries. It's nice to just come out and pick and eat. So we grow a lot of food here. We've got peppers and tomatoes and roses for Kay. It's a great place to be I think."

Bierd has been here for six years now, fixing the high-tech machines that make silicon chips. He learned those skills with the military. He served during Operation Dessert Shield in the early 1990's.

But Hynix laid him off in 2008.

Under The 'North American Free Trade Agreement' Bierd was eligible for free schooling. The question was: what did he want to do? 

Cory Bierd: "I decided to go to school as a nurse. I figured that nursing was a very open career field and that there was a lot of possibilities. The pay's not too bad. It's also kind of similar to what I did before  as a maintenance technician. I used to fix equipment and now that I've finished school, I fix people."

He just finished a one year, $25,000 nursing course at Pioneer Pacific College. Now he's building up his on-the-job training hours at the VA hospital in Roseburg.

The plan is to sell up in Eugene and move to Portland to find work at the local VA hospital.

Cory Bierd: "We lived in San Diego and so we kind of miss the big town atmosphere."

There are also a good number of active paint-ball players in Portland.

But while Bierd is out to have fun, it's clear he's also very focused. He says Portland wages are higher and nurses can make $30 a hour -- almost twice as much as he earned when he started at Hynix.

His plan is to go on and get his degree in nursing on-line. And he's also excited about the field.

Cory Bierd: "They have a lot of different career paths that you can choose. It isn't just working in hospitals. I mean you can work in home health. You can work in hospice care. You can work in assisted living facilities, foster homes. You can work as a school nurse. I mean, there's just so many different opportunities versus what I was doing before which was just maintaining equipment."

Leslie Wilson picked moving -- to Alaska

Across town, in another part of Eugene, Leslie Wilson is in a similar situation -- she's about the same age and recently lost her job.

But rather than retrain or try to find other work in Oregon, I caught up with her when she'd decided to pack up and move to Alaska.

Leslie Wilson: "I have to decide what books to take. I've got my backpack here. And camera I'm going to take pictures with..."

Wilson grew up in Stayton, when it was a small farming community. Her family worked in the logging industry.

She loves reading, art and nature.

When we spoke she was living in a homeless mission in Eugene. She's worked a lot of different jobs and she thinks she probably should have majored in something other than English.

Leslie Wilson: "So, right after I graduated there were no jobs here. In Eugene. It's always hard to get jobs in Lane County. So I went to Japan and taught English for a year. Then after that I worked on a train. It was the American Orient Express. But then then that closed down. Then I went to Hawaii a bit and worked on an organic farm. I keep coming in and out,. And then I did some seasonal jobs."

She says a lot of her friends are in the same situation: they love Oregon and Eugene, but there aren't enough jobs. So they leave for something temporary and then come back when they've saved a little money.

Leslie Wilson: "I guess I feel kind of trapped. I mean I just read everything I can get my hands on about this stuff. I heard that fly-over states have more jobs, but they don't sound that appealing. I don't know what I'd do with myself in Nebraska or some place like that."

So, she's off to Alaska. 

Leslie Wilson: "I'm going to be cooking food for tourists."

Kristian: "Where about on a train, in a hotel?"

Leslie Wilson: "I'm going to be outside cooking, and it's not exactly in a hotel and it's not in a train. But I'm going to see what the set-up is when I get there."

Kristian: "Like a dude ranch, or something like that?"

Leslie Wilson: "I honestly don't know."

It's a job and when things are tough, Wilson says, it's a question of taking whatever you can get. 

Leslie Wilson: "Okay, if I could go back knowing what I do now, I would completely take the major I was completely in love with but that's completely impractical and then right after that I would have done something sensible like maybe a two year community college degree in something like I don't know, physical therapy assistant or something. So that I could support my frivolous interests."

Those interests would be art -- something she hopes to pursue in her spare time now that she's in Alaska.

In a tight job market, retraining for a career is a good option, though it can cost money — unless  the federal government is willing to pick up the tab.

Of course moving to another state has costs too.

But economists generally agree you'll do better if you retrain or move with a career goal in mind, rather than jumping around the country doing seasonal work in the hope of landing that perfect job.

We'll recap some of the stories you've heard this week in special half-hour documentary, Wednesday afternoon at 4:30. Getting Back to Work: it's on the minds of many people in the Pacific Northwest.