Just as Michigan is scrambling to retrain laid-off auto workers, New York City officials have come up with a plan to find new work for the unemployed from one of its core industries: financial services.

Under a program unveiled on Wednesday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the city wants to invest $45 million in government money to retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street, as well as provide seed capital and office space for new businesses those laid-off bankers might create.

The plan is intended to stem a potential exodus of banking professionals from the city during the restructuring of the financial services industry, which has been the city’s economic engine for decades, and to speed the industry’s recovery, which will take at least several years, officials said.

City officials also plan to try to lure big banks and financial companies from Asia and elsewhere to set up operations in New York, filling some of the void created by the implosion of large American firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. They hope the federal and state governments will let them use $30 million in federal money to attract those companies and other financial firms to Lower Manhattan.