NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- When Jenny Frank decided to become a teacher, she thought she was going into a profession that could weather any recession.
Before leaving her job as a recruiter for Goldman Sachs to enroll in Hunter College School of Education in early 2008, she asked her mother-in-law if she was making the right decision.
An estimated 135,000 teachers will be out of work this school year. Not even a recent $10 billion injection to education from Congress is expected to help that much.
The hiring of new teachers has slowed dramatically and fewer veteran educators are staying in the field for their entire careers, said Segun Eubanks, director of teacher quality at the National Education Association, which has 3.4 million members.
"Unless we see some level of turnaround in the economy, it's likely to get tougher for new teachers to find jobs and for long-term sustainability," Eubanks said.
Frank, who is certified to teach elementary school in both New York and New Jersey, sent out close to 500 resumes this spring. She's applied to public schools, private schools, charter schools and even education-related firms such as Scholastic Inc.
Every day, she sits in front of the computer and scans job boards and classified ads or networks through online sites such as LinkedIn. She also asks her friends and family to put her in touch with anyone working in the profession.
Since graduation, she's tried to further her skills and increase her marketability.
During the last school year, Frank worked as a teacher's assistant in a first-grade class in a Manhattan public school. She said she learned a lot from the part-time post, which entailed working with students who needed extra help, meeting with parents and supervising the children during recess and lunch.
"I figured I'd get my feet wet for a year and then get into the system," said Frank, who also tutored and babysat to boost her income. "But it didn't work out that way."
This year, she's applied to be a substitute teacher at the same school, figuring she'll learn more by leading a classroom. She recently spent a day dropping off resumes with principals at nearby schools.
Because school has already started, there's little chance of her securing a post for this school year. But she's not yet ready to abandon the profession. She is considering taking classes to get certified to teach in gifted and talented programs, which will increase the number of jobs to which she can apply.
And though she's gotten calls for recruiting jobs, she's not yet ready to jump back into the private sector -- a step she says she won't do unless she's 100% committed to a career in the field. Of course, she doesn't even know if she could land a corporate job after being out of the field for more than two years.
"I'm kinda stuck," she said. 
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