CHICAGO — William Spolec sips iced tea at a window table in a busy downtown Starbucks.

Dressed in slacks and a knit shirt, a brown leather attache case at his feet, he easily could be mistaken for a casually dressed professional taking a late afternoon break.

Instead, the veteran human-resources executive is early for a seven-hour shift behind Starbucks' counter.

Laid off two years ago at age 62 from a bank vice president's job, he took the $7.50 an hour job because his health insurance was running out. He felt lucky to find it.

"I'm getting good benefits," he says.

Spolec is one of hundreds of thousands of professionals who lost their jobs during the 2001 recession and its aftermath, a long jobless recovery.

They were caught in an unusual economic downdraft, a period marked less by the sheer number of people thrown out of work — 2.7 million in all, or about 2 percent of the workforce — as by high rates of long-term unemployment.

While previous recessions hit less educated blue-collar workers harder, this downturn took its toll on white-collar workers, who made up 44 percent of the long-term unemployed between 2001 and 2004, according to a recent study.

In June, long-term unemployment dropped below 20 percent of total unemployed for the first time in nearly three years.

Spolec and others in his predicament are largely overlooked. Like him, they work "survival" jobs while trying to climb back into their fields.

Computer consultant Jill Wohlbedacht is still struggling to come to grips with the layoff that jolted her comfortable life.

For 2 1/2 years she'd worked with an insurance company.

Then came the tech meltdown in 2001. Higher-paid consultants like Wohlbedacht were the first to be cut.

She has refinanced her home, quit her health club, canceled magazine and newspaper subscriptions and stopped going out. To slow the drain on her savings, she works at J. Jill, a clothing store. Since her health insurance ran out two years ago, she has gone without.

"The biggest change in my life is worrying about money," she says. "You pinch pennies so tight."

Charles Crimmins never went long between jobs until 2001.

That's when he moved back to Chicago from Montana, where he was a university vice chancellor, figuring there would be no shortage of opportunity.

Four years later, Crimmins, now 60, works survival jobs between consulting gigs. He recently earned $10 an hour conducting telephone interviews.

LeRoy "Joe" Zebley's voice is confident, his shoulders erect. Briefcase open, he's talking to a group of high-tech workers.

They are professionals — looking for work.

Zebley has been out of a job longer than any of them.

When he took early retirement from SBC Communications Inc. at age 55 in 2000, he figured he'd land another job.

Instead, he said, "I've been searching ever since. The hardest work I've ever done is finding a job."