At the end of last year, "Joe Claus":http://www.joeclaus.com was working at a small electronics company in Silicon Valley doing photography, marketing and design. And then he got laid off. "I was pissed," he said. But there was an unforeseen upside…

The pace of layoffs slowed in April as employers cut 539,000 jobs, the fewest in six months, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. But the unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent, the highest since late 1983.