day job?

I'm an UNEMPLOYED engineer. My degree is in mechanical engineering; all of my experience is in process & manufacturing engineering. The company I worked for closed our plant in July, 2002, and moved our operations to its plant in South Carolina. We were given big retention bonuses to stay until the plant closed, so I took a few months off and didn't start to look for a new job until January, 2003. It was probably just as well that I hadn't started looking - the job market was, and still is, terrible. I've been unemployed twice before and those times were NOTHING like this. I'm already seeing age discrimination, at the ripe old age of 42. Maybe "salary discrimination" is a better term. I've been on several interviews where it quickly became clear that they want a less-experienced engineer because they want to pay less. WAY less. I interviewed for one job that would have been a 40%-45% pay cut from my last salary. At this point I don't know what to do. Manufacturing does seem to be disappearing in our country. Maybe I should become a plumber or an auto mechanic!

I'm an UNEMPLOYED engineer. My degree is in mechanical engineering; all of my experience is in process & manufacturing engineering. The company I worked for closed our plant in July, 2002, and moved our operations to its plant in South Carolina. We were given big retention bonuses to stay until the plant closed, so I took a few months off and didn't start to look for a new job until January, 2003. It was probably just as well that I hadn't started looking - the job market was, and still is, terrible. I've been unemployed twice before and those times were NOTHING like this. I'm already seeing age discrimination, at the ripe old age of 42. Maybe "salary discrimination" is a better term. I've been on several interviews where it quickly became clear that they want a less-experienced engineer because they want to pay less. WAY less. I interviewed for one job that would have been a 40%-45% pay cut from my last salary. At this point I don't know what to do. Manufacturing does seem to be disappearing in our country. Maybe I should become a plumber or an auto mechanic!