WHEN he was laid off in 1990, Carl Weinberger, an engineer, fought off despondency, hit the bricks and eventually found work.
When he was laid off again this year, Weinberger did the same. It wasn't easy, he says: "You've got to help yourself. Otherwise you get stuck in a terrible morass."
Bernard Lloyd is no closer to finding employment than when he was laid off nine months ago. His jobless benefits have expired. Yet Lloyd, also an engineer, remains active by writing a book and attempting to patent several inventions of his own.
Bob Lightman has a full-time job. It is searching for a full-time job. His days are a blur of phone calls and meetings with prospective employers, and friends of employers, and friends of the friends of employers.
"You've got to keep moving, always moving," says Lightman. "If you stop moving, you break the chain. And the longer you stop, the longer it takes to put the links back together."
Here and across the country, professional or managerial status no longer provides protection from layoffs. From the summer of 1990 to last summer, at least 18,000 white-collar workers in Maryland lost their jobs, a 300 percent increase over the previous 12 months. Moreover, people over 40 often are cut from the payroll.
Carl Weinberger is 61, Bernard Lloyd is 60 and Bob Lightman is 50.
Weinberger, a resident of Timonium, endured a double whammy; he was laid off twice by different firms in a period of 14 months.
The second layoff was in April by the Howard County government, which had hired him as an environmental engineer seven months earlier.
So Weinberger began assembling his resume again. He also began to doubt himself. Who wouldn't?
"Depression sets in. You feel unwanted. You wonder if anyone out there really appreciates what you do," he says. "You think, What did I do wrong? And, Why me?"
He rattled around the brick rancher he shares with his wife, a homemaker, and two of their six children.
"There were days when I just stayed in bed," he says. "I wasn't physically sick, I was mentally demoralized."
Weinberger snapped out of his lethargy. He sent out 200 resumes, called five manpower agencies, answered countless newspaper ads and contacted virtually everyone he knew in hopes of landing a job.
His persistence paid off: In August, Weinberger found employment through a fellow churchgoer at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Towson.
