Analysis paints harsher picture of Mass. joblessness

Despite signs of an economic recovery, the state's job market remains exceedingly weak, with one in nine Massachusetts workers unemployed, underemployed, or no longer looking for work, according to the study by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. The study paints a bleaker picture of the Massachusetts economy than the state's jobless rate, a historically modest 5.7 percent in September, would otherwise indicate.

It also provides a sobering look at how far the state's economy has fallen since the boom days of 2000, when unemployment dipped to a record low 2.6 percent, and forecasts a long, difficult climb from one of the worst recessions in Massachusetts' modern history. For example, the number of Massachusetts workers losing their jobs for good has more than tripled, to 81,000, from 26,000 in 2000.

Meanwhile, hard-core unemployment -- those jobless for more than 27 weeks -- has surged sevenfold since 2000, about three times the natonal increase.

And, not surprisingly, the average duration of unemployment in the state also has risen, to 20.8 weeks this year from 10.6 in 2000. Joblessness, on average, is lasting longer in only two other states, Mississippi and New York, said Andrew Sum, the study's principal author and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies.

"We've doubled the length of time people are unemployed," Sum said. "Long-term unemployment is a different type of thing, leading to people falling into poverty and the like."

Avril and Ed Sobolik, of Bolton, are among those falling. Both of them -- Ed, 65, a tool maker, and Avril, 51, an information specialist and corporate librarian -- were laid off from their jobs more than two years ago, and neither has been able to find a new one. With unemployment benefits exhausted, they had to drain Ed's retirement accounts "trying to put ourselves in the position to survive," Avril Sobolik said.

"We've never been out of work together, and we never expected to be out of work this long," she said. "We have no health insurance, and we owe everybody. There's just so much competition out there, that if you don't match a job description exactly, it doesn't matter if you have transferable skills."

As the Soboliks show, the problem for 55,000 so-called hard-core unemployed is that the Massachusetts economy has yet to begin creating new jobs, primarily because of its concentration of technology and financial service companies that were hardest hit by the bursting 1990's bubble. A recent study by the state Division of Employment and Training of job market conditions at the end of last year found that there were 3.3 unemployed workers for every available job.

Michael Goodman, director of economic and public policy research at the University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute, said the state's job market is only now beginning to stabilize, and should begin a new round of job growth by the end of this year. Still, even by the end of 2005, the state is likely to recover less than two-thirds of the 150,000 jobs lost in the recent recession, said Goodman, who recently completed the Massachusetts economic forecast for the New England Economic Project.

In addition, Goodman said, most job growth is likely to be concentrated in sectors other than those hardest hit in the recession. Laid-off technology and manufacturing workers, for example, probably will have to search even longer for jobs that match their skills, or settle for ones that pay less or are below their skill levels. Many will also have to retrain.

Anna Yetkie, 30, of Auburn, lost her job as a technology project manager about a year ago, and after months of fruitless search she gave up and returned to college to earn a degree in legal studies, with plans to go to law school.

"I sent hundreds and hundreds of resumes out, but there just wasn't a market," she said. "Now I'm 30 years old, broke, and going to school."

Yetkie is now among the hidden unemployed, those who have stopped actively looking for work and are no longer counted among the jobless. That pool, averaging nearly 90,000 workers in the first seven months of this year, is nearly 40 percent greater than it was in 2000, according to the study.

The number of unemployed that continue to be counted by statisticians has grown even faster, by 140 percent since 2000, while underemployed, as measured by those having to work part time to get by, is up nearly 50 percent. All told, about 11 percent of Massachusetts workers are unable to find enough -- or any -- work. Despite the fact that the state unemployment rate remains four-tenths of a point below the national rate, Sum said, "it feels so desolate out there."

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