The state jobless rate is a number, but joblessness itself has many faces.

It is not just that an estimated 304,536 Georgians were looking for work last month, but that they are on such different trajectories.

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RENEE HANNANS HENRY/rhannans@ajc.com

Gloria Maddox of Sandy Springs reads over information at the state Labor Department’s career center at Toco Hill.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATES ON RISE Georgia

• July '08: 6.2%
• June '08: 5.6%
• July '07: 4.4%

Metro Atlanta

• July '08: 6.3%
• June '08: 5.9%
• July '07: 4.6%

— Source: Georgia Department of Labor

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What many of them share is an urgency.

With a wife, two children and a modest income, Mark Sequeira, 31, started looking for another job as soon as he lost his. “I can’t afford to wait,” Sequeira said. “I need to start working right away — within two weeks — or else things will start falling apart.”

The search could become more challenging. Joblessness was at 6.2 percent statewide and 6.3 percent for metro Atlanta last month, levels unseen since the early 1990s. Yet the story has changed from decades past when recessions were all about manufacturing.

Things this week were busy at the state Labor Department’s career center at Toco Hill in DeKalb County, but a random sampling of job seekers turned up not a single factory worker.

Instead, job seekers now — like the overall work force — come from the service sector. Their numbers are evidence that the economic engines are downshifting, although their diversity says that the economic puzzle fits together in unpredictable ways.

Allen Davis, 28, came back to Stone Mountain in November after eight years in the military, much of that time spent on the USS Nimitz, where he managed the ship store and barbershop.

He is in school, studying cosmetology. But with seven months of school left, he wants a paycheck.

He is encouraged: “I’ve got two promising job possibilities so far.”

Some layoffs link to headline trends.

Gloria Maddox, for example, seems to be a casualty of the dismal housing market. Maddox, 42, of Sandy Springs, was doing office work for a small company that handled real estate loans.

“I had only worked there three months and she wasn’t able to pay me anymore.” She has been searching for a job since then.

Maddox has done office work and nursing. She wants to find something soon. She has three teenagers at home.

Varying cushions

Some job-cutting seems like echoes of the old manufacturing cycle: hiring in good times; layoffs in bad.

Thu Bui, 37, a native of Vietnam, has been a decorator for about 12 years and is accustomed to being laid off: “They do it when things slow down.”

He is upbeat, hoping that this time is just another in that skein. “It’s the same every year. Then, in one or two months, we come back.”

And some business trends are constants, like mergers.

Anne Esterly, 43, of Atlanta has worked in information technology for about 13 years, most recently in systems administration and technical support.

Her company was acquired. Her IT group was cut, “pretty much all of us,” she said. “We weren’t shocked — except by the abruptness of it.”

She is looking for another tech job. “I can certainly go three or four months without dipping into savings,” she said.

Amanda Garrett doesn’t feel she has even that much breathing room. Garrett, 32, had worked for a decade in staffing, recently as a recruiter for physicians. She was let go last week.

“It is outstanding work — it’s very profitable,” she said. “I like finding people jobs.” First, she needs one for herself.

“If I can’t find anything, I am going to go into business for myself,” Garrett said. “I have no savings. I live paycheck to paycheck.”

Thin gray line

If employers’ profile has changed, so has the visage of their workers — most noticeably by going ever-grayer. An increasing proportion of older Americans are staying on the job — or returning after retiring.

Gerald Collins, 64, of Atlanta has been looking for a job since taking retirement after 37 years with BellSouth (now AT&T) as an electronics technician.

“I love the structure of a working environment, and I like the feeling of accomplishment. I grew up on a farm, and all I’ve known is work.”

Collins thinks his age has been an obstacle to being hired.

“They don’t ask how old you are, but they see that you worked somewhere 37 years and they can do the math.”

The statistics say he should keep trying — someone is hiring older workers.

About 6.1 million workers in July were 65 years old or older — up from 5.6 million a year earlier and 5.1 people in 2006. At least some employers have viewed older workers as more reliable.

And with many of them using work as a supplement to a pension or other income, they may be taking some jobs that might have gone otherwise to teens.

Youth vs. experience

The jobless rate for 16- to 19-year-olds has climbed from 15.3 percent to 20.3 percent during the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of course, when seasoned with a few more years, and a bit of skill, youth, too, has advantages: the willingness to take risks, the ability to reverse course, peel back and take a new path.

Heather Foster, 25, Atlanta, left a job as an accountant at a nonprofit, willing to bet that she can do much better.

“I felt that with a master’s degree, I should get paid more than $30,000.”

That paycheck could be in pesos.

She is flying to Argentina this week for an interview with an international accounting firm. “And if that doesn’t work out, I’d just probably go back to school and get a certificate to be a teacher.”

Education has typically been a deep fault line in the job market. The jobless rate for workers with at least a bachelor’s degree was 2.2 percent; those who had no high school diploma were unemployed nearly four times as often, according to the most recent data from to the BLS.

Ray of hope … for now

But Sequeira went to Morehouse for his bachelor’s, then the University of Michigan for grad school. The sheepskins did not come with job security.

Sequeira was a market analyst for a pharmaceutical company. He was only there a few months when the company hit a couple of potholes.

“They had one product recalled, and another didn’t get approved,” Sequeira said. “I got laid off Thursday.”

He was in the Labor Department career center Monday. Despite the setbacks, his education and skills gave him added reason for optimism. “There are always analytics jobs out there,” he said. “I need to find which ones are really right for me.”

He scrolled through the Labor Department’s lists of open positions.

“I’m hopeful,” he said. “It’s too soon to not be hopeful.”

— Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics