Feb. 8--MARTINSVILLE -- Mary Greer says she worked at the same Martinsville factory for 42 years, but after being laid off in August, she doesn't believe she'll ever find a job in this city again.

"There's really no work around here," the 61-year-old said recently as she left the Virginia Employment Commission's Martinsville office. "I call [businesses] two times a week, and they all say the same thing, 'We're not hiring.'"

Greer's plight -- she survives on temporary unemployment aid and her late husband's Social Security benefits -- illustrates the conditions for many here in Martinsville, which as of December had the state's highest jobless rate, 15.4 percent. Statewide, the unemployment rate is 5.4 percent.

Once a powerhouse of Virginia's booming textile and furniture industries, Martinsville is mired in hard times, more than anywhere in the state. The big plants started shutting or leaving more than a decade ago as federal trade policies changed, and more have closed in the past two years.

Now, as the national recession prompts consumers to cut spending, Martinsville employees thrown out of work by the exodus of manufacturers find themselves unable to get jobs at the remaining companies, which are hunkering down to ride out the economic downturn.

The city estimated it would receive $1.7 million in business-license revenue by the end of fiscal 2009. But with little more than four months left in the year, it has received just $100,000, city spokesman Scott Coleman said. The low number suggests that businesses in Martinsville, as in other parts of the state, are putting off paying their fees for as long as possible as they navigate choppy economic waters.

City Manager Clarence Monday summed up: "We need help."

Illustrating that Martinsville's plight has caught the attention of national policymakers, President Barack Obama on Wednesday hosted a city resident, Gregory Secrest, at the White House as the president signed a health-insurance bill.

Obama noted that Secrest had lost his job in August, along with health care for his children. When Secrest broke the news to his family, Obama said, his 9-year-old son handed his father his piggy bank with four dollars in it and said, "Daddy, if you need it, you take it."

The city has found itself particularly vulnerable to its former reliance on manufacturing jobs, and the numbers suggest that is still a problem: Fully 32 percent of its labor force remains in the manufacturing field, said Mark Heath, president and CEO of the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp.