Clara Mateus, a graphic designer, arrived home from work in tears. Just a few months after she was named employee of the year, her boss at a Florida bank announced her department would be eliminated and told her she no longer had a job. Seeing his wife distraught, Allen Borza spent the evening giving her a pep talk.

But the next day, Borza, also a graphic designer, was laid off from his job at a landscape architecture firm.

Instead of completely flipping out, Borza said, ``I told Clara, this is opportunity knocking.''

With unemployment in the double digits in Florida, the two opted for entrepreneurship over job hunting. They formed their own firm and chose to tap the green movement by marketing themselves as eco-conscious graphic designers. Call them entrepreneurs by necessity, they represent a new wave of unemployed workers who find the optimal way to earn income is to form their own business. But the path becomes particularly risky when both household contributors pursue entrepreneurship at the same time.

But it was the push Borza and his wife needed. Otherwise, he said, ``I don't think we ever would have jumped out of our comfort zone to do this.''

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