With Miami's skyline in constant flux as new residential towers rose, the condo boom was a great time to be an elevator technician.

``Everywhere there was a tower crane, there was an elevator crew,'' recalls former technician Larry Byrne.

Then came the bust. And a week before Christmas, Byrne's employer gave him a pink slip for a present.

For months, he looked for a job and came up empty. Then he found a federal government program that pays for job retraining. Now he's in school studying to be a nurse.

Thanks to the stimulus package, the government should be able to help thousands more people like Byrne get retrained.

Included in the stimulus was an extra $165 million to expand existing job-seeking and retraining programs run by Florida's state-sponsored employment agencies, including $32 million for the agencies serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

In addition to retraining, the agencies are spending the money on other jobs-related programs -- such as increased staffing in the region's crowded employment offices and more outreach to inform employers about services on offer.

The retraining program could prove particularly important in South Florida, where the jobless rate hit 10.7 percent last month, and where 25,000 construction jobs have vanished in the past 12 months. In principle, at least, retraining can help workers find skills in a new field that offers more opportunities.

Byrne's case is a good example.

In June, he started a yearlong training program at Broward County's Sheridan Technical Center. When it's finished, he will be ready for certification as a licensed practical nurse -- a high-growth field with a statewide average wage of $19 an hour.

Through Workforce One, Broward's state-sponsored employment agency, Byrne is receiving around $4,000 for tuition, books and supplies. Since Sheridan is a public facility, run by the Broward school district, the money is enough to pay the full cost of his education.

For the next year, Byrne and his wife will be living solely on her income as a medical assistant. But without the Workforce money, Byrne said, he probably couldn't have gone back to school at all.

``I'm working harder at this than anything in my life,'' he said. ``It's a rare opportunity that I get, to go back to school.''

Byrne is participating in a retraining program created under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. This law provides federal money, funneled through the states, to local agencies like Workforce One in Broward and South Florida Workforce in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. These agencies use the money to operate employment offices and manage training programs.

The stimulus money basically gave these two local agencies a one-time 50 percent increase in their budgets.

South Florida Workforce says the money will enable the agency to help thousands of workers, including about 700 through the retraining program. The agency estimates 92 percent of retrained employees will be placed in new jobs, said Rick Beasley, the agency's director.

Each Workforce agency can place a limit on the training cost per worker. Broward's program, for instance, has a limit of $5,000.

The agencies also decide what type of training will be allowed. In general, they are supposed to pay for training only in fields that are expected to grow -- such as nursing, X-ray technology and some computer disciplines.

``We try to do in-demand occupations,'' said Kelly Allen, a vice president of Workforce One, ``but in this economy -- it's the worst economy in 30-something years -- there aren't any in-demand occupations.''

The upshot is that Workforce One is trying to be careful about which training programs it will pay for. For example, training for truck drivers -- normally a high-demand occupation -- has been suspended because few such jobs are available.

South Florida Workforce has hired about 65 temporary workers to help handle the influx of visitors to its 12 employment offices. WorkForce One is hiring about half that number.

Workforce One has about 69,000 people registered for services, up from 28,000 this time last year. That includes people signed up via the Internet, as well as those receiving services in person.

South Florida Workforce also has seen a sharp increase.

Byrne figures job-seekers need all the help they can get. He visited Workforce One's Hollywood employment office regularly before he started training.

``You see desperation on some people's faces,'' he said. Helping people change to a higher-demand field could be a great help. And he's optimistic about nursing.

``I did a search on the Internet,'' he said, ``and there were hundreds of LPN jobs.''

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