INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's leaders have launched economic development initiatives and handed out tax breaks to bring in new jobs in recent years, but the state is still struggling to make up for its lost high-paying industrial jobs.

About 40,000 industrial jobs have vanished since 2003, The Indianapolis Star reported. The 3,000-employee Thomson glass plant in Marion, for example, closed in 2004. Former employee Dianne Randolph, 46, hasn't found a steady pay check since losing her job at the plant.

"I've lost my home. I don't have a car anymore. My mom gives me rides," said Randolph, a single mother training to drive a heavy truck. "Now it's getting worse. It's hard on the kids. They can't find good jobs."

The state has tried to replace manufacturing jobs with high-wage technical positions and other jobs. When Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels took office four years ago, state and local leaders launched economic development initiatives in hopes of brining new jobs and increasing earnings per job.

Indiana has 37,000 more jobs now than when Daniels took office, but the gap in earnings per job has grown. In 2006, the last year for which state-by-state income data are available, earnings per job in Indiana averaged $41,007 — trailing the national average of $47,286, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jill Long Thompson, the Democratic candidate for governor, has criticized Daniels' economic performance.

"I think Governor Daniels has not been successful in putting forth policies that work for Indiana's economy," Long Thompson said. "And I think, as my mother would say, the proof is in the pudding."

Daniels said making up for the steady loss of factory work will take time.

"This has been a 40-year phenomenon," Daniels said. "It's not going to be turned around in a couple of years, certainly not in the face of a downturn in the national economy."

The state certainly has bright spots. The metropolitan Indianapolis area added 6,000 jobs in August. While statewide unemployment was 6.2 percent in September, the jobless rate in the Indianapolis area was 5.5 percent.

"What's happened has been this shift," said Kevin McNamara, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. "Manufacturing companies have a preference now for locations in and near urban areas."

Lafayette and Bloomington also have a cushion against the changing economy because of Purdue and Indiana University and the innovative businesses that go along with the colleges.

"That's helped insulate the economy," said Philip Powell, a business professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. "We're not seeing the tech businesses fail. It's the 20th-century businesses that are failing."