PORTLAND – Long-term unemployment continues to rise in Maine, though the state’s unemployment rate remains well below the national average.

The state’s average duration of unemployment in May was 17.6 weeks, up from 15.7 weeks a year earlier.

Thus far in 2003, 235 more people have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits than last year, an increase of 3.5 percent.

Nationally, 1.6 million people were unemployed for longer than 27 weeks in June 2002, according to the Labor Department. During the same month this year, there were 2 million unemployed for that period.

Maine economists said the job market still remains dry.

Those with specialized skills that are no longer hot have been hit hard by long-term unemployment because their experience is so specific it is hard for them to go into another field without extensive retraining, economists said.

“It’s not that there aren’t jobs, although we do have unemployment. The problem is what kind of jobs,” said Christopher St. John, executive director at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, a nonprofit research group that publishes reports on tax and budget policies.

Bob Miller of Kittery has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology, a master’s degree in social research and two certifications, in technical writing and computer programming.

Miller’s 15 years of computer experience had him earning $85,000 a year as an author of software manuals until a round of layoffs at IBM cost him his job in April 2002. But Miller’s education and experience have not helped him to find a new job.

“I certainly was not expecting that I would be out of work this long – or unable to find that kind of job again,” he said.

In Miller’s case, the computer industry collapsed. He was left with many skills but without employers looking for them. He was moving into computer programming when he lost his job, but his job search showed that neither technical writing nor computer programming had openings.

“There were a lot of people with lots of experience in programming who were looking to work and at entry level, such as myself, and zero possibilities of actually getting anywhere,” he said.

However, lower-paying occupations, such as cashiers and food-preparation workers, saw a large growth in employment.

“There are jobs being created in those kinds of occupations that don’t require high education but the wages are a good deal less,” St. John said. “It’s particularly challenging for middle-aged workers who have middle-income [jobs] to suddenly face [this] situation.”