The Bay Area has a ‘‘highly unusual labor market’’ that produced many more high-end jobs than low-level ones during the boom of the 1990s—and deteriorated faster than the rest of the state when the downturn came, according to a report released today.

‘‘All the boosters of the new economy at the time it was booming talked about it as if this was happening everywhere,’’ said Ruth Milkman, director of the Institute for Labor and Employment, a statewide research program of the University of California, which funded and published the study. ‘‘Our analysis shows that it was happening, but it was happening in a very limited geographical area.’’

By the end of the boom, when unemployment was very low, even workers at the bottom of the economic ladder were benefiting, said Manuel Pastor, an economist and director of the Center for Justice, Tolerance and Community at the University of California-Santa Cruz, who contributed to the study. But the recession may erase those gains.

The speed of the downturn is related to the increased use of contingent workers, especially in Silicon Valley. Statewide employment by temporary agencies grew significantly faster than overall employment during the boom, then fell abruptly during the recession.

‘‘The markets are more volatile than they once were,’’ Pastor said.

The report said this recession is at least partly cyclical, which means the jobs are likely to return.
‘‘I think the centers of innovation are still important as job generators,’’ said Carol Zabin, chairwoman of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California-Berkeley and a contributor to the study.

Still, ‘‘people thought California was going to come back quicker than it has,’’ Pastor said. And even if the economy recovers in a year or two, that may not be fast enough for most unemployed workers.
The report also included data from a 2001-2002 survey of California workers that indicates how much work has permeated Californians’ lives:

(box) Just under half the workers surveyed said they are either officially or unofficially required to work overtime. But a majority of workers at all levels—from blue-collar workers to managers—said they also work overtime because they enjoy their work and enjoy being with their co-workers.

(box) Almost 40 percent of the respondents reported using a pager or cell phone on the job. A majority of those who had pagers or cell phones—including 88 percent of managers who had them—used them to keep in touch with work after hours.