Until she was laid off, Danielle Trent was a lending officer for a finance company who always wore a good suit to work.

These days she has swapped her office for a workshop at Sydney City Toyota and her BlackBerry for a spanner. A month ago, Ms Trent, 30, became an apprentice motor mechanic.

She said that, although many of her friends in financial services had been retrenched, “I didn’t think it would happen to me’’.

“There was no talk of it; it was an overnight thing.”

Ms Trent is one of thousands of people suddenly forced to change their working lives, a process exerting downward pressure on existing jobs.

Robert Evans, president of the Financial Counsellors Association of Western Australia, said: “I’ve known a lot of bricklayers taking jobs as labourers, just to work.”

With the end of the mining boom in Australia’s northwest, people were coming back to Perth looking for work.

“They’ve had top mining jobs earning in excess of $130,000,” he said.

But they were willing to take jobs at lower wages. “So that means the next rung down is having more trouble,” Mr Evans said.

“They’ve been in good jobs. Now it’s a whole different ballgame. They’re actually reviewing how they see life.”

Gary Leffley hasn’t got a job at the moment, but he can’t help feeling he is one of the lucky ones.

Mr Leffley, 53, was among the 30 men sacked by the GJames glass and aluminium company this month. All 30 worked at an aluminium extrusion factory at Smithfield in Sydney’s west.

All 70 employees from the plant were assembled in the lunchroom. Without warning, 30 were handed form letters dismissing them.

Mr Leffley is single. “I feel for the guys that are married, with families to support,” he said.

A bout of ill health years ago taught him there’s nothing worse than sitting at home alone feeling sorry for yourself. He will take any job he can get.

“I’m going to do some retraining,” Mr Leffley said. “I’m the sort of person it’s driving me crazy not to work.”

Just a month before they were dismissed, his former workmate Jason Patterson, 35, had taken out a mortgage for a unit in the western Sydney suburb of St Marys, his first property.

“It’s a very uncomfortable situation as you can imagine,’’ Mr Patterson said. “I didn’t realise this was going to happen.”

Now he is combing through the newspapers and going on the internet, looking for a job. He has registered with a job agency. They did what they could but were always very busy, he said.

When Ms Trent was laid off, she took three months off to consider her options.

“I took it as an opportunity and Toyota have been great,” Ms Trent said.

She is getting some overtime for now. When that ends, she will be earning half of what she earned in financial services.

“I’ve kept costs as low as possible,’’ she said.

“I’ve had to set out a new budget. It’s one of those things: the more you earn, the more you spend.”

Source: Career One