A man looks over the jobs bulletin board at netWORKri in Providence.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — Annabelle Ortiz lost her job at a mortgage company last year. And lost another this summer.

Claudia Cano got laid off from a North Smithfield shipping company, her position sent overseas.

Michael Hedblom was forced to leave his landscaping job when consumers stopped splurging on extras like lawn care.

The trio is just three of the hundreds of people that flood Rhode Island’s four job resource centers each morning looking for work.

MBAs and those who have dropped out of high school, former law firm types and assembly-line workers crowd the center for resumé workshops, job counseling or just a dose of moral support.

Their stories are all different. And all the same.

The number of jobless in Rhode Island has soared to almost 50,000, pushing the state’s unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, second only to Michigan.

More than twice as many Rhode Islanders are collecting unemployment benefits than a year ago at this time. Many of them are navigating the job market for the first time in decades, never having thought that their career paths would lead them to the state’s unemployment system.

Their first steps start with a phone call or a visit online to file for unemployment benefits — automated telephone and Internet registration replaced wilting lines at unemployment offices about eight years ago. For an increasing number, the path then leads to netWORKri, the Department of Labor and Training’s job resource sites.

The brightly lit centers in Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and West Warwick (plus a satellite location in Middletown) are places where the unemployed can meet with counselors, take skills courses, or just use the computers and fax machines to look for work.

“I think we’re all feeling affected by this in one way or another,” says Patricia McCrea, director of the Providence netWORKri center. “If it’s not your own family, it’s someone you know.”

BY 9 A.M. ON Thursday, the center’s parking lot was jammed and nearly every computer in the resource lab was occupied. A woman sipping Starbucks coffee tapped out a cover letter while a man next to her listened to his iPod and scanned a job-referral site for construction jobs.

Visitors can use the resource centers to suit their own needs, says McCrea. If they want intensive resumé help, that’s available. If they just want a place to print out cover letters, that’s fine, too. A $1-million federal grant has helped upgrade the technology in all four locations.

The challenge, she says, is in offering resources to a variety of job seekers, from teenagers and unskilled laborers to people with advanced education degrees –– and yes, there are dozens of those.

“Some people coming in have been working for many, many years. They may have great skills but they aren’t aware how to search for a job,” said Sandra Powell, director of the Department of Labor and Training. “How they got a job 15 years ago might not be at all the same technique they should be using today.”

In a first-floor conference room, four middle-age women exchanged cover letters, offering critiques and the occasional self-deprecating joke.

“I’m just way, way out of the loop on all of this,” one woman said to a chorus of nods.

Finding a new job in their field after years with the same employer has its challenges, they agreed.

“This is why we call it Network Rhode Island,” McCrea said later. “People trying to survive a layoff need to talk to each other and they need to be in an upbeat, positive atmosphere. This gives them support and it gives them coping skills.”

It also helps manage expectations. “With some people we have to say, ‘You may have an MBA but you may not get that job you’ve been looking for right now,’ ” she said.

THE MOOD was different downstairs at the center where students in an advanced language class worked on polishing their English. A second class across the hall focused on interviewing skills, with most learning the proper protocol for the first time.

“I’ve just got so many friends, who’ve been looking, looking, looking and find nothing,” said Claudia Cano, sitting in the English-language class. “Some lost their jobs and then they lost their houses. It’s bad.”

Upstairs, Annabelle Ortiz wasn’t up for any classes. Sitting in the back of the spacious computer lab, she just wanted some solid leads.

“It’s scary, especially when you have kids and you have to pay rent,” said Ortiz, 32, who first lost her job at a mortgage firm and then at a health-insurance company.

Before the latest layoff, the soft-spoken mother of two was in a training program to become a medical assistant, but money woes forced her to drop out. She’s found a few job leads, but most of them have been for low-skilled positions at places like supermarkets — which feels like a step backward, not forward.

“I’m a mother and you do what you have to do, but it’s not where I thought I’d be…” Ortiz said, her voice trailing off.

FOR ORTIZ and others at the center, the big fear is that they will run out of unemployment benefits before they find a job.

The state’s unemployment system relies on a complex equation that gives the jobless up to 26 weeks of unemployment depending on their salary and tenure. The federal government this spring extended those benefits up to 13 more weeks for eligible residents.

But as of last week, an estimated 3,200 Rhode Islanders had already run through their federal extensions. For those people, Rhode Island has extended benefits up to another 13 weeks for those who qualify.

A half-dozen states are at the risk of having their unemployment funds drying up completely as a result of the economic crisis nationwide.

Rhode Island is not on the brink of insolvency, but it made a list of 32 states that have less money in their unemployment trust funds than recommended by the federal government, according to stateline.org.

Raymond A. Filippone, assistant director for income support at the state’s Department of Labor and Training, said by springtime, there’s a possibility Rhode Island “could have a period of time that we may go insolvent.”

Unemployment funds are paid by the businesses that lay people off, but the companies’ contributions are based on layoff figures from the prior year, meaning in a swift-moving recession like this one, too little money is paid in to meet a swelling demand.

If the state’s coffers run out, Filippone said, Rhode Island can tap a federally secured loan that would kick in automatically, so the unemployed would not see their benefits affected.

That assurance did little to ease the fears of those who passed through the Providence center Thursday, most of whom said they hope to be collecting a full-time paycheck long before there’s any chance of benefits running out.

But with the onset of the cold weather, unemployment rates are expected to rise, as seasonal workers lose their jobs and the economic forecast continues to worsen. That will only increase the average wait times for those who need to speak to a customer service representative at the unemployment division’s call center. That time has already stretched to almost 30 minutes.

The Department of Labor and Training says prolonged waits are the result of more calls, though a rush of retirements resulting from a change in health benefits for retired state workers hasn’t helped either.

By 4 P.M. Thursday, Patricia McCrea, the Providence center’s director, looked tired as she surveyed the emptied-out computer room. The next day would be even busier, she predicted. They always are.

But then she smiled, remembering one of the brighter moments.

Michael Hedblom, the former landscaper, got a job. Having just completed his first interviewing workshop that morning, Hedblom landed a conditional offer that same afternoon with Rhode Island Clean Water Action, one of dozens of organizations that works with netWORKri to hire qualified workers.

McCrea picked up the phone to congratulate him.

A grateful Hedblom reported that if all goes well, he starts on Tuesday.

The best part, he said, is that he can tell his children their dad got a job.

For more information about how to apply for unemployment benefits, go to www.dlt.ri.gov or call (401) 243-9100. To learn more about the resources at netWORKri go to www.networkri.org

cneedham@projo.com