Massachusetts lags all but one other state in job creation and is shifting toward a “boutique” economy that rewards those with education and skills but leaves others behind, according to a report released yesterday by a non-partisan research organization. 

The report, “Mass. Jobs: Meeting the Challenges of a Shifting Economy,” found that the state ranked 49th in the nation in job creation since 2001, better only than the state of Michigan.  The state also came in last among 10 competitor states and last in New Endland in job creation during the last six years.

Job-growth study: Mass. next to last

Massachusetts’ job growth has lagged all but one state’s in recent years, according to a new study, raising the possibility that the state won’t regain the jobs lost in the last recession before the next one begins.

The study, released today by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, or MassINC, finds Massachusetts is still far from recovering the jobs lost in the recession that began in 2001.  Six years later, the state still has 100,000 jobs to go.

MassINC and the Brookings Institution gently call them the “gateway” cities.  They are places like New Bedford and Fall River, Holyoke and Lawrence, Pittsfield and Lowell – former mill towns that got left out when the factories closed, leaving poverty and unemployment and all the related social problems behind.

Massachusetts has to save itself because no federal cavalry is coming to the rescue. 

Political, business and civic leaders can start by reading a new report issued jointly by MassINC and the Brookings Institution, both non-partisan think tanks devoted to public policy research. 

The study, Reconnecting Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities: Lessons Learned and an Agenda for Renewal, points out the economic imbalances created by de-industrialization and the changeover to a new knowledge-based economy. 

MassINC and the Brookings Institution made a splash this week with a report that paints a bleak picture of what it terms “gateway cities” – former mill cities – that the authors conclude are lagging far behind Boston in making the transition from the manufacturing economy of the 20^th century to the “knowledge economy” of the 21^st. 

“Reconnecting Massachusetts Gateway Cities” focuses on Worcester, Brockton, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Pittsfield and Springfield – all former mill cities, but hardly the homogeneous group the report’s authors seem to imagine. 

Massachusetts mill cities are crumbling under the weight of their legacy.

Born in a different era, when rushing rivers powered ear-splitting mills, the cities are struggling to shake their dependence on the industrial background that spawned them. 

The cities, flung all over the state, are far behind Greater Boston in terms of job growth and per-capita income.  A study released today by MassINC, an economic development think tank, hopes to explain why and to help spark a renaissance for these so-called gateway cities such as Lowell, Lawrence and Fitchburg. 

Brockton’s economy still suffers from the loss of textile and shoe factories and the jobs they held, but a statewide report released today indicates the shoe city is moving forward.

That is the conclusion of a report released by the public policy organizations MassINC and the Brookings Institution. 

The city’s proximity to Boston, the commuter rail line and the transformation of old mills into affordable condominiums are cited as positive factors as the city continues to struggle with the loss of more than half of its manufacturing jobs from 1960 to 2000. 

While showing some signs of emerging from their smokestack pasts, Worcester, Fitchburg and the state’s other mill cities are still very much in Boston’s shadow in the knowledge-based economy that is expected to lead Massachusetts into the post-manufacturing future, according to a study to be released today.