Tribune Chronicle / Amber Ziegler Alex McDowell, bartender at Vernon’s Cafe in Niles, stands in front of his bar. McDowell has been in the restaurant business for almost 30 years and learned how to tend bar on the job.

What do you do when you’re laid off from the job you’ve been at for 20 years? Why, you go to bartending school, of course. So says “Voices from the Recession,” a multimedia project from The Washington Post. According to the project, enrollment at a bartending school in Virginia is up by 25 percent. But can the same trend be seen in northeast Ohio? Will Cobbin, director of the Cleveland Bartending School of South Euclid, says that enrollment at the school is up by 30 percent. The school places its graduates in jobs within a 75-mile radius, and Cobbin says that right now, the school has more job openings than students to fill them. However, bartending school doesn’t seem to be a trend among bartenders in Trumbull County. Peter Sfikas, manager of The Rig in Howland, has been bartending for eight years and has never seen a job applicant with bartending school on their resume. “If you’ve never worked in a bar, you have no idea how to bartend. You know how to mix drinks,” said Sfika.