The job losses that have driven Rhode Island’s unemployment rate to the highest in the nation have hit disproportionately hard among workers in construction, manufacturing and low-wage office jobs in what one labor economist yesterday declared a “blue-collar” recession.

Like the rust-belt state of Michigan, which went into a tailspin when automakers hit the skids, Rhode Island’s construction jobs began to vanish when the housing market collapsed. Rhode Island’s old-line manufacturing jobs are also disappearing, leaving thousands of workers who may not have graduated from high school, never mind college, with nowhere to go.

So far, the biggest increase in the ranks of the unemployed in Rhode Island has been among workers with only high school dipolmas — but everyone will “feel this pain” if the recession continues, said Paul Harrington, a labor economist and associate director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

That bleak assessment was delivered during an economic forum hosted by Governor Carcieri and attended by more than 100 business, labor and community leaders at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

State leaders will hear more dismal reports about the economy today when Moody’s Economy.com releases a revised forecast for Rhode Island at the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference.

Rhode Island is expected to lose nearly 10,000 more payroll jobs during the next 12 months before the economy begins to turn around, according to Moody’s.

Yesterday, Carcieri urged business leaders and elected officials to join forces and take “bold steps” to lift Rhode Island’s economy out of the worst economic recession in a decade. Carcieri recalled the 1989-90 recession, when the real-estate market collapsed amid overbuilding and bad loans made by savings-and-loans, saying “Here we are right back in the same phenomenon.”

Back then, the state unemployment rate rose to 10 percent and the state lost some 48,000 jobs over 1½ years.

Since the recession hit 12 months ago, Rhode Island has lost nearly 16,000 jobs and the state’s unemployment rate has climbed to 8.8 percent, the highest in the country and just ahead of Michigan’s.

(Construction and manufacturing employment comprises only about 16 percent of all jobs in Rhode Island, but they account for one-third of all job losses during the past 12 months.)

“My fear right now,” Carcieri said, “is that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Yesterday’s forum included presentations by a corporate relocation consultant and an expert on tax policy and economic development. Their assessments shined an unflattering light on Rhode Island’s shortcomings in its ability to attract jobs and raise the standard of living of its residents.

Rhode Island, like other New England states, is geographically at a disadvantage because it’s not located in the middle of the country, the “sweet spot” along major production transportation routes, said John M. Rhodes, senior principal with the corporate relocation consulting firm Moran, Stahl & Boyer.

Moreover, Rhode Island’s high taxes, high energy costs and comparatively high labor unionization rates have created a “perfect storm of noncompetitiveness” for attracting businesses, Rhodes said.

The old adage that workers will be rewarded simply for their diligence and hard work is no longer true, Rhodes said. Employers also want workers who are flexible, adaptable to change, creative and innovative, he said.

“If the union can instill that kind of culture, it will be a hero,” Rhodes added. “But if you look to gang up on employers, you will lose.”

Rhode Island also has failed to create the skilled labor force or the infrastructure needed, Rhodes said, to attract businesses to grow here. Other states are doing it, he said. New York is developing phototonics (using light to move information), biotechnology, nanotechnology and renewable energy systems. Florida is investing in health-care related biotechnology and marine sciences. Colorado is converting an old airport into a health-care center. North Carolina leveled a former textile mill to build a campus to bring together nine universities around the state for health-related technologies. The state is also building an industrial park to ring the university.

Rhode Island invests $200 million to $250 million a year in research, Rhodes said, which “sounds like a lot” until you consider that Massachusetts spends 10 times that amount, or $2.3 billion each year.

Rhode Island’s high taxes also discourage businesses from moving here, said Jim Eads, executive director for the Federation of Tax Administrators.

“Do incentives work? A lot of academics will tell you that they do not,” Eads said. “That would be the answer if you didn’t live in the real world.”

One study out of Minnesota, Eads said, showed that high personal income taxes were the “biggest impediment to growth.” The keys are “targeted” incentives, he said, and the need for cities to cooperate rather than compete with one another for jobs.

Rhode Island can’t compete, though, unless its workers are competitive, said Harrington, the labor economist. And to be competitive, workers must be better educated.

The unemployment rolls bear that out. In a PowerPoint presentation, Harrington showed that about 5,800 workers with only high school degrees were unemployed in September, up 42.6 percent from a year earlier.

Harrington said he hopes that under President-elect Barack Obama a massive federal economic stimulus plan will be under way which will include cuts and public works projects that will help the national economy and Rhode Island’s.

But it’s not enough, he said. If Rhode Island sits by and waits, he said, “a lot of that recovery will pass you by.” The problems

Taxes: The state ranks among the highest in the nation for combined state and local tax burden.

Energy: Rhode Island has the second-highest energy costs in New England.

Education: Rhode Island lacks a highly educated and trained labor force.

larditi@projo.com