The recession hastened a trend that has been under way for at least a decade: the disappearance of jobs paying middle-class wages that required no more than a high school education.

On Sunday, I wrote about how vocational programs could help keep students in high school, and in turn, engage them enough to continue to college.

But in the course of the recession and its aftermath, many of those who have flocked to community college programs in health care, manufacturing, aerospace, biotechnology and other vocational subjects are those who lost their jobs during the downturn.

Mark McSweeney, a 34-year-old former welder featured in a report from the video journalists at Purple States, started out trying to improve his skills to find work in a new sector. Halfway through his studies, he lost his job.

After two years, he obtained an associate’s degree in applied science in the metals engineering technology program at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, N.C., where about three-quarters of the students are people who had been working before returning to college. After Mr. McSweeney completed his degree, he landed a job inspecting electronic parts.

“Individuals that did not have high-end skills were the first to be hit” during the recession, said Gary Green, president of Forsyth Tech. “And they are having the most difficulty in the job market today.”

Although hiring is still sluggish, those employers who have openings say they often have a hard time finding qualified applicants, because many of the workers who are currently unemployed don’t have the skills that employers require.

Mr. Green said the college’s biggest challenge was money. The federal government provides Perkins grants to states to help finance improvements to vocational programs at both the high school and community college levels. Such resources often help technical departments buy new equipment to keep up with changes in industry. But for the fiscal year 2012, the Obama administration has requested a 20 percent cut in funds for career and technical education.

“Programs that are needed in today’s economy are often high cost programs that have high personnel costs for people who have the special skills and high equipment costs,” Mr. Green said. In addition to the cuts in Perkins funding, he said, “you are having state budgets being strapped. We’re getting squeezed from all sides at a time when, with the right capacity, there are opportunities to put people to work.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=eaa7cdc2434b083f8f06f0a131220a2d