Where are the jobs in St. Louis?

KSDK -- Thousands of people in the St. Louis area are out of work, maybe you're one of them. The unemployment rate in St. Louis is nearly 10 percent, meaning more than 140,000 of our family, friends and neighbors are looking for gainful employment, people like Kenneth Freeman.

It's 8 a.m. and IT professional Kenneth Freeman is already hard at work. He's working overtime to find a job.

"All too often, IT is seen as a cost factor or cost center and I'm the person who comes in to see that it's a profit," says Freeman.

Freeman was recruited and relocated to St. Louis in 2008. A year later, when the company decided to go in a different direction, Freeman found himself in unfamiliar territory.

"My strategy has been to network with people, which as I mentioned earlier, was one of the things I wanted to do in 2009 anyway, was a new year's resolution," says Freeman. "And, as I said, I didn't expect to do it this way."

While being let go was a blow, the number of resources Freeman found in St. Louis to help people in transition was a pleasant surprise.

Blair Forlaw leads the talent development initiative at the Regional Chamber and Growth Association. Bounce Back St. Louis sponsors recruitment events, including one at the Missouri Department of Transportation.

"We don't want to lose them because we need talented people, so our goal is to assist them in finding new opportunities as quickly and as painlessly as possible," says Forlaw.

Research shows the job market is slowly coming back. Forlaw suggests job seekers pinpoint four areas.

"First of all there are jobs, I went this morning to the Indeed.com website, which is probably the most comprehensive listing of job opportunities in the St. Louis area, and there were 16,500 job openings, of which about 13,000 are full-time jobs," says Forlaw.

Start with the sectors of our economy that fared well during the recession.

"Health care is one as everybody knows, but the health care openings are not just in patient care. There is a demand for nurses, physical therapists, for physician assistants, but there are also job openings in health care in clerical, administrative assistants, help desk positions," says Forlaw.

Another sector is education.

"I would encourage folks to look at post secondary education, job opportunities in colleges and universities and again, some of those are teaching jobs, but some of them are office type jobs, information system jobs, lots of opportunities in education," says Forlaw.

Next is in the IT field.

"There continues to be a lot of demand in information security, that's a big issue right now, so if you're an IT person and you know anything about information security, I would encourage you to look there," says Forlaw.

And finally: government positions.

"Particularly in government contracting, a lot of openings that have to do with defense and homeland security," says Forlaw. "Now typically these jobs are found through external agencies, contracting agencies, but they tend to be good positions with benefits."

While tapping into job trends can be a good strategy, completely reinventing yourself may not be possible. Nancy Jones has helped professionals plan career strategies for 30 years.

"I think it's so important to dream with your feet on the ground and to see if you can't work with transferable skills, when you are in a situation in which you don't have the luxury to add new training," says Jones.

Jones says if you want to venture into a new area, do your homework.

"If you are interested in bridging or exploring a new industry or a new function, you think that maybe you've got some skills that would transfer well, networking is going to help you do a reality check, as well as, learn more about how to make that happen," says Jones.

Since Freeman was new to St. Louis, networking was his main objective.

"Everybody talks about the six degrees of separation with Kevin Bacon, call it more about two, two and a half in St. Louis," says Freeman. "But it's been a very good experience, because I've been able to network with a lot of different people and a lot of different organizations."

And while it hasn't landed him a position, he's optimistic.

"While I am still concerned, I know that something will happen, relatively shortly or at least by the beginning of the new year," says Freeman.