He graduated from Columbia. He became a respected journalist at the Dallas Morning News. The paper nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize.

But now Michael Precker manages a strip club.

What does this say about the state of the economy these days? A lot.

The Wall Street Journal reports the following:

The Dallas Morning News, where Precker was a reporter, offered buyouts – and pushed them to workers, strongly. Workers were concerned that next year’s buyout options would not be as generous. Some feared for their jobs.

Precker said he could see “storm clouds” on the horizon.

“It seemed pretty clear that people of my vintage weren’t going to get through retirement,” Precker, 53, told the paper.

His friends were surprised by his career move.

“He’s probably the last guy anyone would have expected to become the manager of a topless joint,” Morning News columnist Steve Blow told the Wall Street Journal. “He was a family man, a truth seeker, a serious journalist who covered the Middle East for us and then came back and wrote lifestyle stories about every subject imaginable.”

Precker now manages a strip club called The Lodge, which won “Best Overall Club” at the Gentlemen’s Club Owners Expo in Las Vegas.

This may seem like an extreme career move, but with the skyrocketing layoffs of late – the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose to 4.81 million in the week ended Jan. 31, according to the Labor Department – Precker isn’t alone in considering a new career.

In a recent survey conducted by People 1st, 45 percent of the UK workforce considering major career change as recession looms. Is it the same for Americans?