EAST GREENWICH — Jon K. Polis starts his job search nearly every day at home, on his computer.

He repeatedly checks Web sites for job openings. He pays a $10 monthly fee to an online job-locator service, too. “I’m signed up for, like, 10 different job boards,” Polis said.

But since losing his last job in March 2008, as a receiver for a medical supply business, his efforts have proved fruitless. He has had a few nibbles, but no real bites. “None. No offers. Nothing,” he said. “In this economy, you can’t find anything.”

Amid a global recession that lingers like a smoker’s cough, Rhode Island’s unemployment rate has risen — and the ranks of the long-term unemployed have swelled.

Of the 74,000 Rhode Islanders who are officially classified as unemployed, about 17,760 have been out of work for 52 weeks or longer, according to federal and state figures.

In other words, 24 percent of Rhode Island’s unemployed have been out of work for a year or more, compared with 11 percent at this time last year.

In many other states, the story is the same: millions of people cannot find jobs no matter how hard they search, according to the National Employment Law Project, a New York-based research and advocacy group.

“Never in the history of the nation’s unemployment insurance program have more workers been unemployed for such prolonged periods of time,” Beth Shulman, chairman of the group’s board of directors, testified at a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing last month.

About 5 million people nationwide have been out of work for six months or more — a record since data started being recorded in 1948, she said.

Long-term unemployment affects people financially, often draining their savings, said Judy Conti, federal advocacy coordinator for the National Employment Law Project.

Interviewing and job skills erode, too, and prospects dim. “The longer you are out of work, the harder it is to get a job,” Conti said in a telephone interview.

At public libraries in Rhode Island, at the state’s network of one-stop career centers, and at other locations, people hungry for work pore through computer listings, newspaper help wanted ads and other resources to try to find a job.

It is rough going: On average, there are six unemployed people for every job opening nationwide, Conti said.

For Polis, ground zero in the job hunt is a one-story ranch house, painted Cape Cod gray, on South County Trail in East Greenwich. As cars and trucks whiz by his home, Polis works the computer — and the phones — in an attempt to find work.

It was not always like this, he said. After studying business at the Community College of Rhode Island in the late 1970s, Polis held a number of jobs, and never had much trouble moving from one to another, he said. There has always been work.

In early 2000, he landed a job as a receiver for Vanguard Home Medical of Warwick, a supplier of oxygen and other medical supplies, and worked there for more than eight years.

But a while after his company was bought out, he was laid off.

He collected regular state unemployment benefits, then qualified for a series of extensions. When his first benefit year ended, he had to file again to keep collecting, he said. But because of the complex way in which the unemployment insurance rules work, he was turned down. He appealed, but lost.

As a result, he has now been out of work for more than 18 months — and has been unable to draw unemployment benefits for the last four months.

Overall, more than 3,100 jobless Rhode Islanders have exhausted their unemployment benefits this year, according to state figures as of Oct. 8. The number grows by about 150 each week.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed has been pushing for an extension that generally would allow many people who are out of work to collect benefits longer.

In past recessions, the economy generally rebounded fairly quickly. This time, however, the recession has dragged on, the result, in part, of “the near collapse of the whole credit system internationally,” Reed said in a telephone interview from his office in Washington on Thursday.

As a result, “You have virtually this perfect storm,” he said, and “it is really difficult for people to find work.”

The benefits extension that Reed supports was ready to go last week, but was stalled by opponents, he said.

Even if it is enacted, however, it is not clear whether Polis would qualify. Many of the unemployed qualify for benefit extensions, but some do not, said Raymond A. Filippone, assistant director of the state Department of Labor and Training, who oversees the agency’s unemployment insurance programs.

As Rhode Island’s recession enters its third winter, the job picture remains bleak.

Edinaldo Tebaldi, assistant professor of economics at Bryant University, said that, based on preliminary projections, unemployment in Rhode Island will remain high — at least above 10 percent — until 2012. “The economy will not be creating many jobs over the next couple of years,” Tebaldi said.

Before Polis exhausted his benefits, he said he was collecting about $251 a week, plus $25 in additional federal benefits through a federal law enacted in February.

Now, he draws on savings to pay expenses, he said. He projects that his savings will be depleted early next year. “After that runs out, if I don’t find work, I’ll have to rely on the charity of my relatives, because I’ll have nothing left,” he said.

In the meantime, he searches for work — usually by scanning online job postings and reading help wanted ads in The Providence Journal.

Sometimes, he reaches out to former employers.

When he heard that the medical supplier for whom he last worked was changing hands again, he phoned and left a message with a manager he knew, hoping to get a job.

“Remember old comrades,” he remembers saying on the message. “If you’re hiring, remember old comrades.”

ndowning@projo.com