Maxine Gill, left, interviews Sarah Stuser, 18, for her nanny and tutor franchise.

The Washington Post / CLARK

WASHINGTON — This wicked recession is throwing roadblocks in the way of many careers. It’s not just layoffs knocking people off track. Workers are facing years with few or no pay raises, vanishing bonuses, curtailed retirement contributions, longer hours and a heavier workload.

With the national unemployment rate at nearly 9 percent, most people find they have no choice but to accept more work, stagnant pay and less security, at least for now. But some — a minority so far — are steering their careers in directions they hope will be more promising, more fulfilling and more under their own control. The money may not be as good as their prior jobs, and the risk of personal failure may be high in some cases — but the prospect of a new career path — sometimes one long desired but ignored — is alluring.

Maxine Gill, 46, took her career in an entirely new direction after she was laid off from her job as sales and marketing director for Comcast in January 2008. “I enjoyed what I did, but I knew I was not going to retire from that job,” she said. This was the second time she had been laid off. “Marketing always seems to be first to go,” she said.

Earlier this year, she struck out on her own, investing $50,000 to $60,000 in a franchise, College Nannies & Tutors. Her company hires people (taking care of the tax and paperwork headaches) and places them with families for temporary or long-term duty.

“Everything is on my shoulders, but I enjoy working for me,” said Gill, of Laurel, Md. “If I were still in corporate America, I would have to work extra hard, and I would have to travel. You’ve got to do more now because of the economic recession to keep your job.”

The layoff aligned with an existing desire to open her own business.

The government is also hiring, and some people are seeking security in the public sector, with applications for government jobs hitting 7.7 million during the first five months of this year. That comes close to the 8.1 million total for all of last year. Other people are pursuing a more spiritual bent. Applications to study this fall at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington are up 10 percent.

“Most of it is attributable to a change in the economy and to people looking for more meaningful work,” said Beth Ludlum, director of recruitment at the seminary.

And the number of people who want to volunteer for charitable organizations is soaring.

Madye Henson, president and chief executive of Greater DC Cares, a group that trains volunteers for work with more than 200 charitable groups, said there is clearly an increase in volunteering, in part because it helps laid-off people keep their skills sharp. But she tied it to the presidential election, as well. “I think a lot of it is attributable to the president raising a flag and challenging everybody to give back,” she said.

Laura Murray took a big step in the spring to alter her life. She is a lawyer in her early 50s who closed her 10-year-old crisis-management consulting business in New York, sublet her apartment and moved to throw her energies into an alternative career in Washington. “It is one of the smarter, cooler things I have done,” she said.

“It really was an opportunity to think, ‘do you want to do something differently?’ ” she said. “The old way isn’t working.”

Now she is re-engaging her first love: politics and public policy, a field she had worked in early in her career.

“It’s such an exciting time to be in Washington,” Murray said. She is aggressively pursuing jobs at federal agencies or with a private-sector group that works with the government. Her new career will most likely result in a pay cut, but Murray says Washington’s lower cost of living (she pegs it as 15 to 20 percent cheaper than New York) will cushion the loss. “I view this as an opportunity, and I’m not going to waste it,” she said.