PROVIDENCE –– The slowing of job losses nationally suggests the country might be digging itself out of recession after a painful tumble that has lasted nearly 1½ years.

The nation lost 345,000 jobs in May, compared with 539,000 in April and 652,000 in March.

But in Rhode Island –– hammered by the downturn for a grueling two years and four months –– some analysts fear it may take longer to see sunlight.

In part, that is because the state is deeper in the hole.

In this downturn, the worst since the 1930s, more months of recession means more home foreclosures depressing real estate values. It also means more job losses, with the unemployment rate in Rhode Island at 11.1 percent, the fourth-highest in the country.

The types of jobs being shed in Rhode Island could also complicate a rebound, analysts say.

The state’s factories are writing 5,100 fewer paychecks than a year ago, and many of those laid off are not expected to be recalled. After all, manufacturing employment has dropped every year since 1990, with 7,000 jobs lost since the start of the recession.

Some jobs that require a hard hat will come back, as Rhode Islanders start buying and building houses again and businesses can again borrow money to expand.

But economists say there may not be as many construction jobs as in the days of the housing bubble, when Governor Carcieri joked that the construction crane was the state bird.

“There’s a lot of people who lost jobs where those jobs are not coming back,” Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said in May while announcing a $750-million effort to prepare workers for health care, technology and renewable energy jobs.

The difficulty of that retraining is what keeps Rhode Island policymakers up at night.

“Rhode Island’s recovery will be slower than that of the United States,” Andres Carbacho-Burgos, an economist for Moody’s Economy.com, said. “It’s easy to point to the usual suspect, manufacturing.”

Moody’s projects that new home construction in Rhode Island will not reach pre-recession levels until mid-2012, a year after the national home-building market hits that milestone.

The state’s job market is not projected to fully recover from the recession until late 2013, two years after the U.S. has erased the downturn’s fingerprints.

Another factor that has analysts betting against Rhode Island is something the state does not have: a cluster of high-tech companies.

As large U.S. businesses and rapidly growing economies in Asia regain their footing, demand for electronics and other specialized products is expected to rise. That, Carbacho-Burgos says, will buoy states like Connecticut, home to aerospace companies such as helicopter-maker Sikorsky and jet-engine maker Pratt & Whitney.

In a report released Tuesday, Moody’s said Rhode Island would be in a third wave of rebounding states, suffering through the first half of 2010 even as oil-rich states such as Texas and Alaska see economic growth and high-tech industries lift Colorado and Washington.

“We don’t have any industry strong enough to latch onto,” Edward M. Mazze, a business professor at the University of Rhode Island, said.

For Rhode Island, Mazze said, the best hope for a comeback may be the federal stimulus, a massive infusion of cash that has not yet been felt here.

Kevin Sheahan, vice president of Sheahan Printing in Woonsocket, is not about to declare the recession over.

The 86-year-old company managed to boost sales by 15 percent last year, but bargain basement prices pushed down profits by 10 percent. Orders from jewelry makers for product catalogues are few and far between.

“I haven’t seen a turnaround yet,” Sheahan said. “This is the most challenging time I have ever seen.”

Part of the skepticism about Rhode Island’s prospects comes from memories of the recession that struck in 1989. The state lost jobs for 25 months, even as the national economy turned around in less than a year. Rhode Island needed almost eight years to climb back to pre-recession employment; the U.S. did it in nine months.

Housing prices, meanwhile, did not return to 1989 levels until 2000. In most of New England and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, real estate agents were smiling again by 1997.

That experience led to the perception that Rhode Island is always first-in, last-out when it comes to recessions.

But the 1998 recession involved not only a national downturn, but a local banking crisis that saw 45 banks and credit unions shut down and more than $1 billion in deposits frozen. For those depositors, low consumer confidence was not the major factor that squelched spending.

(Rhode Island also took longer than the nation to recoup its lost jobs in the 1974 to 1975 recession, when the percentage of jobs lost was double that of the country.)

This time around, not everyone is digging in for a hard slog. As temperatures rise, tourism boosters say the state’s hotels, restaurants and beaches could reignite the local economy.

A survey by the U.S. Travel Association found that 54 percent of U.S. households plan to take at least one leisure trip this summer, up from 50 percent last year. Many will opt for the type of day or weekend trip that brings most visitors to the Ocean State.

“I think the summer could be very good for Rhode Island,” Roger J. Dow, president of the association, said in an interview. “Travel is going to start leading us out of this recession.”

At Hunt Yachts in Portsmouth, there are signs the rough seas may be calming. Few are scooping up $600,000, custom-made yachts. But Hunt is selling a used boat a week –– and persuading the new owners to spring for upgrades.

A big jump in business could push employment, now at 25, back to 70, Peter Van Lancker, Hunt’s president, said.

For now, the business is rejoicing in used-boat sales and a jump in customer phone calls.

“It keeps the home fires burning,” Van Lancker said. “There’s a lot of activity.”Bouncing back

•Here’s a look at how long it took Rhode Island to recover from recent economic downturns compared with the national average. The length of the recession is based on how long it took for the jobless rate to return to pre-recession levels.

1974

U.S: 10 months in recession

R.I.: 19 months in recession

1981

U.S.: 12 months in recession

R.I.: 9 months in recession

1989

U.S: 9 months in recession

R.I.: 93 months in recession

bgedan@projo.com