NEWS FEATURE: Congress is reluctant to step in with more financial help, as New York state has received its $491 million share of the $8 billion federal unemployment fund

Recently an executive in a not-for-profit organisation in Manhattan advertised for an associate with a bachelor's degree and a couple of years' experience. The salary offered was $35,000 (€36,877) a year, modest enough by New York standards; some office assistants get paid as much.

The executive said she received 90 applications. Most candidates were wildly over-qualified, and some had up to 10 years' experience. Many had a master's degree. One even had a Harvard degree and an MBA from Columbia University Business School.

"Maybe I should be working for him," she said jokingly. This employer's experience is not unusual these days in New York.

Executive jobs for highly-qualified candidates have almost dried up. In fact many desperate job-seekers are rationalising their inability to get better-paid work by applying for positions at organisations that do good.

Their frustration is shared by job-seekers at every level. In the 12 months ending April 30th, the city lost a total of 107,300 jobs. There are three fewer jobs today for every 100 people than there were a year ago.

Some jobs were lost in the contracting economy before September 11th, but most of the haemorrhage can now be traced directly to the terrorist strikes on the World Trade Centre.

In the three months after the attacks, 67,000 jobs disappeared in Manhattan and the four other boroughs, while the level remained more or less static in outlying districts such as Staten Island and Westchester.

In cities and towns around New York the unemployment level is around 5 per cent but in New York it is 7.7 per cent, more than 2 per cent higher than a year ago and well above the national average of 5.8 per cent.

What makes the situation desperate for New York is the fact that temporary unemployment benefits are running out this month for just over 100,000 unemployed people. The benefits were added in March, to extend by 13 weeks the six months of regular state unemployment benefits, which most began to claim when jobs were destroyed or disappeared after September 11th.

Congress is reluctant to step in with more financial help, as New York state received its $491 million share of the $8 billion from the federal unemployment fund paid to states to extend benefits. The only hope for renewed funding is that New York state will step in with state money to extend the exhausted federal programme.

Of all American cities, New York has the largest number of unemployed who will be cut off from their source of livelihood as the 13 weeks expires.

Social services and food kitchens and homeless shelters are gearing up for a crisis in the hot summer months as tens of thousands of New York people lose their income.

The number of people begging for money in the streets and in the subways has noticeably increased.

There has already been a surge in demand for food, said Ms Lucy Cabrera, president and chief executive of Food for Survival, the city food bank.

"More than 1.5 million people in New York City - about one in five - are relying on free food from emergency food programs, including soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters, to avoid going hungry," she said, in an appeal for help. "More than 500,000 are children and 300,000 are seniors," she added.

"New York City's hidden hungry - those who have limited financial resources to keep themselves housed but without enough money to feed their families - have been particularly hard hit by the poor economy and the ripple effects of 9/11."

These ripple effects include a slump in the tourism and restaurant industry, exacerbated by dire warnings from the government of more attacks. Waiters, drivers, suppliers, small shop owners, and other service workers are out of work, and with nowhere to go. Chinatown is devastated. Queues form every day there for charitable help.

The financial sector has also suffered heavy job losses due to the downturn but people who work on Wall Street tend to be more mobile and can move on. There is also a tendency among big companies to retain headquarters in New York but to disperse employees across several other locations to reduce their risk in the event of another attack.

There was a great scattering of workers and businesses out of lower Manhattan in the months after September 11th. Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers were among the financial firms that shifted hundreds of workers to Jersey City or uptown. Now that rents in Lower Manhattan have come down, and the debris has been cleared from Ground Zero, the exodus is being reversed, as mid-town companies find it more economical to move downtown.

The presence of so many unemployed people "suggests that the city's economic adjustment still has a way to go, and that the drag on the economy really hasn't been felt yet," according to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Economy.com.

Unlike previous times of crises in jobs in New York, the ranks of the unemployed contain a preponderance of people who worked in the business world. Was it really only 18 months ago that graduates were being lured by New York companies prepared to offer sign-up bonuses and six-figure salaries?

The successful applicant for the post of assistant in the not-for-profit organisation was a graduate with a degree from an Ivy League University.

Eighty-nine unsuccessful applicants are continuing their search for work - with the employer naming the price.