When losing your job can be a career opportunity

Redundancy didn't faze Jim Fisher: he leapt at the chance to start his own firm,

It might not feel like it now, but there is life after redundancy Jim Fisher, a 48-year-old from Tipton, West Midlands, lost his job six weeks ago at the Firth Cleveland steel works after 31 years of service. 'I was down for a couple of weeks,' admits the father of two, who was let go along with more than 50 of his colleagues. 'But it's also an exciting time for me. If I don't do make a go of things now, I'll never get another opportunity.'

Fisher was aware that his company was having problems more than 12 months ago and, with the help from Community and Communitas, began retraining and has since requalified in various skills including bricklaying, plastering and even driving a JCB, all of which have helped him set up his own business. He received an £18,000 redundancy payout from the employer he had been with since he was 17 years old. 'We could see the writing on the wall,' he says. 'I purchased everything I needed for my new business before I lost my job. I bought my own van and every week I'd buy a new tool.

But it isn't the prospect of plastering other people's walls that's firing his imagination ('I'm keeping myself busy but construction work is on its knees,' he says); it is the opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

This isn't just some Dragons' Den-style dream: Jim has designed and is manufacturing a new type of builder's trowel, which he has spent £10,000 developing. It has attracted interest from the UK's leading tool manufacturer, but Jim has opted to go into business with a smaller local company. So far they have sold several hundred through builders' merchants. 'If it's a success, it could make us wealthy but I also hope it will create new jobs in the West Midlands. And all of this has come about because Community/Communitas helped me in my hour of need says Jim.