Friends of ours recently moved from the New York City area to Utah after 12 years in the Northeast. They planned to return one day to Utah, where they had grown up and where family and friends still lived. But not so soon and not like this.

My friend graduated in 2000 from the Stern School of Business at New York University and quickly landed a job as an equity trader.

But then, he was caught in the wheels of a merger in early 2009 and laid off with hundreds of his colleagues. It was a terrible time to look for work, as we all remember, and it wasn’t until a year and a half later that he landed another job as a trader.

Six months later, he was laid off again as part of a global restructuring of his new company.

My friend, who asked that I use his middle name, Dean, because he is still looking for work, is, unfortunately, like so many people these days — facing not one, but two layoffs as his profession shifts and shudders around him.

“The first time, it’s easier when it’s merger-related — it doesn’t feel as personal,” Dean told me. “But when you’re one of two guys being laid off, you think, ‘Why me?’ I start thinking, ‘How can I be the one guy with a good degree who is going to be chronically unemployed?’”

After hanging on another year and a half, Dean and his family decided that for financial reasons they had to move back to Utah and regroup. He is still looking for a job in the same field, but hopes his masters degree and 10 years of experience on Wall Street “will stand out a lot more here.”

It’s hard enough to deal with one layoff. But when another one happens — and then perhaps yet another — it’s awfully hard to pick yourself up and shake yourself off. And that is especially true if it’s a sign that your profession is shrinking and there may not be room for you in it anymore.

Another friend, Lucia, who also asked that her middle name be used because she is looking for another position, first lost her job when a magazine where she worked as an editor closed in 2007. She did full-time freelancing for about a year, until she was hired by another major magazine.

Then, “in 2010, 40 per cent of the staff was laid off,” Lucia said, and she found herself in the job market again.

“I started thinking that I was not going to be able to stay in journalism,” she said.

She eventually found another magazine job, but isn’t thrilled with it.

For Lucia, it’s not just the lack of jobs, but the way the profession has shrunk and changed that makes her question her place in it.

“Should I look at nonprofits?” she asked. “Should I go to school to train as a teacher? I wouldn’t be able to stop working and go to school. I couldn’t afford it.”

Cheryl Heisler, president and founder of Lawternatives, which provides career counseling for lawyers exploring transitions to other fields, said, “There’s an emotional as well as a financial toll with multiple layoffs, even if it has nothing to do with you personally. I’ve seen people in outplacement who are kind of shellshocked. Each time, they have to rebuild.”

Heisler said she began her business in 1995, and “when I first started, I was only seeing lawyers frustrated with the practice and wanting to leave. Now I see lawyers who would love to have a job in the legal profession, but it's not in the cards” because there are no positions available.

Of course, being forced to make a change is not always a bad thing. Shane Fischer, a lawyer in Florida, graduated in 2001 and was let go from two different firms because of lack of available work.

Fischer said, “I figured I could either spend several more months looking for a job and get fired on a whim or I could start my own firm.”

So that’s what he did. For the last five years, he has been a sole practitioner doing general litigation.

“It’s a struggle but at the end of the day, I know I’m working hard for me,” he said.

Jeff Conte, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, and co-author of “Work in the 21st Century” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), said there had been little, if any, research on the issue of multiple layoffs and the negative effects.

But much of what applies to those who have been fired once would be true for those facing the situation a second or third time. It may sound simplistic, but keeping structure to one's day, staying active, having social support and keeping healthy are crucial, Conte said.

“That can separate out people who are successful at finding jobs from those who are not,” he said.

On the practical side, when you are job hunting, it is best to address the reality of multiple layoffs up front, said Jim Camp, author of Start with No: The Negotiating Tools That the Pros Don’t Want You to Know (Crown Business, 2002).

“I’d say, ‘Before we even begin, I’ve been laid off four times in the last five years through no fault of my own. If this is a problem, let me know and we'll talk about it,’” Camp said.

Heisler also recommended ways to make your resume look less like a series of job hops by grouping similar jobs under headings rather than listing them chronologically.

“If you had three stints in retail, put them all together under retail experience,” she said. “It adds heft to the experience you've had.”

But what if you have decided it’s time to move out of your current profession altogether? The first step, Conte said, is to parse out the skills that can be transferable to other fields.

Heisler agreed. A good lawyer, for example, knows how to communicate, meet deadlines, write and negotiate - skills that can be useful in numerous other fields.

A particularly useful resource is (AST)NET OnLine, developed under the sponsorship of the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, Conte said. “On (AST)NET, you can see jobs or professions with similar skills to yours and can see where jobs and professions are growing or predicted to grow,” he said.

Another helpful tool, he added, is the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published every two years by the Department of Labor Statistics, which predicts which fields will expand and which will contract. And within a given field, it describes the different sorts of jobs and typical salaries.

Doing this kind of research not only can help you decide which careers to pursue, but also makes you feel emotionally better because you are doing something, Conte said, not just sitting on the couch watching infomercials.

Staying optimistic, as much as possible, may seem impossible on some days, but it’s necessary, Camp added.

“You need to think, What can I do differently on the positive side? Otherwise, it’s easy to stay locked in a world of defeat.”