There are such programs, but their effectiveness and avilability varies widely depending on where you live. Where I live, we have Second Career Ontario[1]. Whe

There are such programs, but their effectiveness and avilability varies widely depending on where you live. Where I live, we have Second Career Ontario[1]. When I was in college, several of my classmates were formerly highly paid tradespeople who ended up unemployed and unable to find work after the decline in Ontario's manufacturing sector. The Second Career program funding was enough for them to go back to school for a couple of years. To to best of my knowledge, all of my classmates ended up making the transition to a new career successfully. I've seen programs in other jurisdicitions that provide some funding for retraining, but not enough funding to teach people enough skills in enough depth for them to realistically be able to move to a new career. [1] http://www.secondcareerontario.com/web/second_career/ http://www.secondcareerontario.com/web/second_career/