Nov. 8--The worst recession in 70 years has ended. But tell that to people trying to find jobs.

"The recession is not over until everyone who wants to work is working and working at what they want to do," said Walter Courtney of Montpelier.

Courtney, 56, is an Internet technology professional who works as a security guard at a retirement home in Hanover County. He was a project manager at a bank, but was laid off early in the economic downturn.

He has picked up a few IT contracting jobs. He has taken classes to tune up his skills.

Still, nothing permanent has come through.

His part-time job as a security guard doesn't pay the bills. It doesn't use his skills. But it puts food on the table.

"Security is an honorable profession," he said. "I have a lot of respect for people who do it."

Courtney makes less than $10 an hour. He gets no health insurance, no paid sick days and no vacation.

"Surviving is one thing. But you want to do what you feel you are capable of doing, so you can contribute," he said. "I couldn't have made it without the support of my family."

His wife, Susan, works as a librarian associate. They have no children.

He said he would gladly take an IT job for less than what he was making before. "I'm willing to work for wages that people get right out of college. I don't have to be an operations officer."

Courtney comes close to fitting the description of most job seekers going through Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a global outplacement firm.

Nearly 64 percent of its clients earned at least $85,000 in their previous positions, the highest percentage of high-income people looking for work since the firm began tracking data in 2000.

The number of unemployed who were in management and professional jobs has nearly tripled since the recession started in December 2007, rising from 1.1 million then to 2.9 million as of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nearly half of long-term job seekers, those out of work for more than 27 weeks, come from the white-collar work force. Following the 2001 recession, white-collar job seekers accounted for about 30 percent of the long-term jobless at the unemployment peak.

The Richmond area has seen a rising percentage of white-collar jobless, with more than double the number of college-educated workers applying for unemployment insurance this year than during the 2001 recession.

Christine Chmura, president of Chmura Economics & Analytics in Richmond, attributed the increase to corporate layoffs, notably the demise of such major employers as consumer-electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc.