State set to recover sooner than US

Signs of an earlier recovery are already emerging in the state as employment losses slow to a crawl, leading sectors add jobs, and the housing market rebounds. Over the past three months, for example, the pace of job losses in Massachusetts slipped to an annual rate of about a half percent, compared with nearly 3 percent nationally, according to US Labor Department data.

Temporary employment, which economists consider a leading indicator of the job market, has increased in each of the past four months in Massachusetts, even as it declines nationally. Home sales, adjusted for seasonal variations, have soared nearly 50 percent in the state since hitting bottom in January, compared with less than 20 percent nationally. Not a single Massachusetts bank has failed during the recession, compared with more than 100 nationally.

“We are well situated to come out of this better and sooner than other parts of the country,’’ said Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “Our banks and financial institutions are healthier. Businesses are in a better position to get credit here. Our key industries have not been at the center of job losses.’’

That’s certainly a change from past recessions, when technology crashes resulted in deeper downturns and weaker recoveries for the state. Massachusetts shed more than 6 percent of its jobs in the 2001 recession, compared with 2 percent nationally. In the recession of the early 1990s, which was worsened by a real estate collapse, Massachusetts lost more than 11 percent of its jobs, compared with 1.5 percent nationally.

This time, however, the state was not positioned at the recession’s ground zero: the housing collapse. With a small construction sector and little speculative building, Massachusetts has suffered relatively modest job losses, about 3.5 percent of employment, compared with 5 percent nationally.

In fact, the state’s key industries may be at the forefront of the recovery. Many economists expect exports and business investment to lead the nation out of recession, and both are important drivers of the Massachusetts economy. The state has a high concentration of firms that sell goods and services to other companies, and that compete in global markets.

For example, EMC Corp., the Hopkinton maker of business data storage systems, earns about half its revenues from foreign markets, a spokesman said. Teradyne Inc. of North Reading, which makes testing equipment for electronics manufacturing, ships about two-thirds of its products overseas.

Meanwhile, exports and business investment are rebounding. Nationally, orders for computer and electronic products have risen in two of the last three months, while exports of semiconductors rose in each of past four months, according to the US Commerce Department. Overseas sales of industrial machinery, another Massachusetts high-tech product, have increased for three consecutive months.

“The recovery will be driven by exports and business spending, and technology is a big part of that,’’ said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, a forecasting firm in West Chester, Pa. “That’s important to places like Boston and Massachusetts.’’

It’s certainly important to Worcester’s Kinefac Corp., which employs about 60 and makes advanced machinery used to manufacture components for the medical device, aerospace, and nuclear power industries. The company’s exports, primarily to China, have risen about 30 percent from a year ago, said Howard Greis, Kinefac’s president.

“The demand has been there, “Greis said, “and we’re beating out our European competitors.’’

US companies are also opening purse strings, said Scott Swartz, chief executive of MetraTech Corp., a Waltham software firm that specializes in advanced billing systems. Last month, for example, the company finalized a sale to an Arizona firm that would normally take about a year to complete. MetraTech closed the deal in four months. “Companies are willing to spend the money,’’ said Swartz.

As a result, MetraTech has added 15 jobs to a workforce of about 100, and is expanding into larger offices. Meanwhile, professional, scientific and technical services, a bellwether tech sector that includes firms like MetraTech, has gained jobs in three of the past four months, and added more than 2,000 since February.

Still, no one expects a boom. The state’s unemployment rate, 9.1 percent, is the highest since the early ’90s and is likely to go higher in the near term. The state’s financial services industry, while escaping the worst of Wall Street’s meltdown, is nonetheless weakened. Commercial real estate faces a bust.

Ultimately, the state’s fortunes are tied to the US economy, said the Boston Fed’s Rosengren. So, its recovery won’t diverge significantly from the nation’s, which is expected to be long and slow.

But for Massachusetts, just keeping up would provide a boost. When the state lagged behind the rest of the nation after the last two recessions, the recovery here was undermined as workers and businesses fled to other regions with stronger economies, said Andre Mayer, senior vice president of research at Associated Industries of Massachusetts. “If we can avoid that,’’ he said, “it’s a win for us.’’

With many regions hit harder than Massachusetts, the state is holding onto its workers. The labor force is continuing to grow, according to state employment figures, and the net number of people leaving the state is at its lowest level since 2001, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Some people are even coming back. Leslie Rivera, 32, left Fitchburg last year for Pennsylvania. Despite training and experience as a medical interpreter and medical assistant, she couldn’t find a job there. She returned to Massachusetts in May and is now studying to become a registered nurse.

When Mary Gembicki decided to relocate from Chicago in November, a friend invited her to move to Georgia. But Gembicki, who has a doctorate in Russian history and works in nonprofit fund-raising, decided on Boston because of its universities, hospitals, and other institutions.

“The prospects for what I wanted to do were better in Massachusetts,’’ said Gembicki, who lives in Bedford. “For me, there is more opportunity here.’’

Robert Gavin can be reached at rgavin@globe.com.