Can Retraining Give the Unemployed a Second Chance?

Andrew Bricknell, 50, has lived in and around Detroit his whole life. Raised in Dearborn, Mich., where his father was a tool-and-die maker for Ford, Bricknell never doubted what industry he’d go into when he grew up—only which end of it.

As a kid, Bricknell showed an aptitude for art. “I wouldn’t say I was an artist, but I could visualize and draw things,” he says. So rather than put cars together, he went to work helping design them.