Douglas Walker of Clermont didn’t get a pink slip, but he thought machinist jobs would be plentiful when he quit his job in July 2011.

After all, that had been the situation in California, where he is from.

“It was so easy to quit a job and walk across the street and have a (machinist’s job) the very next day,” he said. “It’s not like that here. I thought I would have a job the very next week.

“I could usually write my own ticket and go where I wanted, but with this economy, I’ve been looking for six months now.”

At the time Walker left his job, he had been working for an electric motor manufacturer for seven years. He said he didn’t feel challenged on the job and the tipping point was when he called in sick one day and “they said it will count against you,” he said.

“I said, ‘Well, consider it my resignation.’”

Walker, 53, said he has been trying to do some insurance restoration work with a partner.

But that hasn’t panned out like he had hoped, either.

“Right now, construction is nothing,” Walker said.

And life has been tough and is getting tougher.

“I’m probably behind a couple of payments on my house,” he said. “I’m not in foreclosure as of yet, but if I don’t find something fairly soon, I’m on the brink of that.”