Ex-Wall Streeters look to creative job creation

With over 7.2 million jobs lost in the past 21 months and hundreds of thousands of those on Wall Street, how are those former Wall Street workers faring in this employment climate? If the snapshot of five workers at CNNMoney is a good sampling, some are changing careers, some are starting new businesses, some are traveling the world and some are desperately looking for new jobs.

Given the bonus levels we've heard of on Wall Street, a lot of these people are probably in better financial shape to ride out the current financial storm than most folks stuck on the unemployment line. But based on a report from JPMorgan Chase, they might be struggling for as long as four years. Economists at JPMorgan think that based on the disappointing September unemployment figures and the fact that the recovery is weak, it could take four years to recover all the jobs lost.

In the last three deep recessions, the growth rate exceeded an average of 5% for the two years of recovery, but right now economists are predicting a much slower growth rate for the economy. While 2.7 million jobs were lost during the 2001 recession, the jobs market is trying to grow out of a 7.2 million jobs hole.