Older workers have been hit hard.

PORTLAND (AP) – Maine lost a greater percentage of its manufacturing jobs than any other state during the last three years, according to an industry report that pegs the state’s loss at 22.1 percent.

The National Association of Manufacturers’ report said Maine lost 17,800 of its manufacturing jobs between July 2000 and August 2003. The 22.1 percent loss is greater than the national rate of 15.8 percent during the same period.

The United States lost 2.73 million manufacturing jobs during the same time, the report says.

In Maine, the losses have been centered in mature industries such as paper, leather and wood products, which shed at least 7,700 jobs during the three years.

The Maine Department of Labor says that in the paper industry alone, the number of jobs has dropped from 12,900 to 9,500 during the past three years. Leather-related jobs declined from 5,200 to 2,600, while jobs in wood products fell from 7,900 to 6,200.

Older workers are being hit especially hard by the manufacturing job losses because many of them have been within a particular industry for most of their adult lives and face fewer options when looking for new work in their fields, state officials and organized labor leaders say.

While there are plenty of good-paying jobs in the service sector, pay tends to be less than in manufacturing businesses. Service positions that do pay more, such as finance and insurance, also require higher education and skills.

Because most manufacturing workers lack education beyond high school, they need retraining or more formal education to be able to compete for the better-paying service jobs.

Prospects of returning to school are daunting for some older laid off workers, such as Reggie Herbert, a unionized papermaker for 17 years at the Sappi paper mill in Westbrook was laid off three weeks ago with two dozen other mill workers.

“I’m 53 years old,” said Herbert, who figured he had enough seniority to hold on until retirement. “I don’t have time to go to school and get a career.”

Richard Bourgault, 64, a chemical technician who worked at Fairchild Semiconductor in South Portland for 16 years, was part of a group of up to 100 workers who lost their jobs due to what the company said was a stagnant worldwide economy and low demand for computer chips.

Bourgault, who made $16 an hour at Fairchild, has been applying for maintenance jobs and inventory-warehouse positions. But he said employers don’t want to hire someone so close to retirement age.

“How are you going to prove it?” he asked. “They just say, ‘We’ll call you.”‘