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Roanoke Valley residents endured in recent years a bellyful of belly-ups.

They suffered through layoffs, furloughs, shutdowns and hiring freezes. They heard the latest in corporate euphemisms - terms such as outsourcing and downsizing.

Old standbys such as General Electric in Salem and Norfolk Southern Corp. eliminated jobs. As did Atlantic Mutual, Home Shopping Network and many other employers large and small.

The terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, and the recession that preceded and accompanied that dark day took a toll on Virginia employment. According to data from the Virginia Employment Commission, average employment statewide dropped about 5 percent from the end of the second quarter 2001 to the end of the second quarter 2003.

But what happened in the Roanoke Metropolitan Statistical Area during the same period?

The answer depends on whose numbers you consult.

According to the VEC, the Roanoke MSA lost about 6,000 jobs during the period and employment declined about 4.4 percent.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the picture was much bleaker. By census data, the Roanoke metro area shed an astonishing 14,502 jobs, with total employment declining nearly 10 percent.

The Roanoke MSA includes, for the data cited here, the cities of Roanoke and Salem and the counties of Roanoke and Botetourt.

Economist Chris Chmura said the VEC's data for total employment are more accurate because they rely on a quarterly count of employees furnished by employers subject to unemployment insurance taxes. Bill Mezger, chief economist for the VEC, said the discrepancy might reflect "some quirks and differences in the way the data is measured and massaged."

The Census Bureau says its Quarterly Workforce Indicators "are not exactly comparable with those from other sources."

"You really can't compare job total differences from one source from those in another - the important thing is that the trends are the same," said Julia Lane, a senior research fellow for the U.S. Census Bureau.

An upcoming issue of Virginia Economic Trends, a publication of Chmura Economics & Analytics, will report that employment in the Roanoke MSA peaked in June 2001 at 148,300 and reached a low of 140,300 in August 2003 - a loss of 8,000 jobs and a decline of about 5 percent. Chmura said Chmura Economics & Analytics adjusts numbers to "take out variations due to seasonalities such as increased hiring around Christmas." VEC does not seasonally adjust, she said.

For those Roanoke Valley residents who lost their jobs during the recession and the jobless recovery that followed, the numbers never tell the full story anyway.

In July 2003, Penny Elliott-Hooker was downsized along with more than 60 other workers by Atlantic Mutual in Roanoke County - which had been her employer for about 16 years. Elliott-Hooker, 45, said the "pink slip" rocked her hard.

"I was in shock," she said last week. "It was sort of like being in the doctor's office and being told you have a terminal illness."

Elliott-Hooker was an application support technician for Atlantic Mutual and worked in an office cubicle.

But manufacturing was one of the Roanoke Valley's hardest-hit sectors during the period. Manufacturing shed more than 4,600 jobs, according to both the VEC and census data.

In a sobering report released in November 2000, Chmura had warned that the regional economy remained too closely tied to manufacturing - especially waning types of labor-intensive manufacturing.

Last year, noting consistently low rates of unemployment in the Roanoke MSA, Mezger said, "Roanoke seems to have been insulated from the worst part of the recession."

Last week, Mezger said, "Roanoke did suffer some, although the figures on the employment side look worse than those on the unemployment side."

Although jobs disappeared from the Roanoke MSA, its unemployment rate remained low - a puzzling disparity that Mezger said might be explained by the migration of some Roanoke MSA jobs to nearby Montgomery County, by fewer unemployed people from far Southwest Virginia seeking work in Roanoke, by the exodus of discouraged job hunters, by people who are "underemployed" and other factors.

"Our figures showed some decrease in employment, but we never really had any unemployment from it that amounted to much," he said.

The Roanoke MSA's unemployment rate reached a comparatively unremarkable high of 4 percent in July 2003, the month that Elliott-Hooker and her colleagues lost their jobs at Atlantic Mutual. The metro area's average annual jobless rate between 1994 and 2003 was less than 3 percent. The VEC considers unemployment rates of 2 percent and below an indication of a "labor shortage."

The VEC released the state's latest jobless numbers Tuesday. The Roanoke metro unemployment rate was 2.9 percent. By comparison, the city of Martinsville's jobless rate was 15.6 percent.

Mezger said that the Roanoke MSA began adding jobs during the first quarter of 2004. And employers, including manufacturers, have been hiring in recent months. But Roanoke strayed from recovery during the year's second quarter.

Virginia Economic Trends observed, "Many of the state metro areas took a step back from recovery over the second quarter of 2004. None, though, did so as dramatically as Roanoke," where employment declined 2.4 percent during the quarter.

Elliott-Hooker said that she faced a tight job market and a demoralizing search when she hunted for a new employer. Statistics and jobs data don't communicate the pain of being downsized, she said, and those who haven't traveled that emotional terrain sometimes don't comprehend how rocky it can be.

"I think some people who haven't been through it aren't real compassionate or empathetic," she said.

Finally, a year after her layoff, Elliott-Hooker landed a job. In mid-July, she became the office administrator for RJK Services, an automobile shop that specializes in the repair of German-made automobiles and Volvos.

"It's been very good to have her here," said Robert Krogenas, president of RJK Services.

By the Virginia Employment Commission's definition, Elliott-Hooker is "underemployed" at RJK Services because she is working below her earning capacity or level of competence. "It was a significant salary drop," she said.

But after months of living beneath a cloud, Elliott-Hooker has found a silver lining at RJK Services - where she answers the phone, schedules repair appointments, does filing, provides rides for customers and is learning to keep the books.

"I love it here. There's no stress. I'm outside a lot instead of being stuck in a cubicle."