November 26, 1992

In the morning, they are two high school girls with big hair, red nails, and bored looks in physics class. Sylvia Velez doodles. Susan Colarusso chews gum. They wonder what they have to gain by memorizing the difference between velocity and acceleration. But in the afternoon they are cheerful exemplars of the job-training approach that economists, in unusual numbers, are endorsing as a tonic for the nation's ailing economy. As members of a youth apprenticeship program here, called Project ProTech, they spend part of their high school days cultivating a marketable skill, in their case as hospital technicians.

The Economy The nation's economy grew by a surprisingly robust 3.9 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said. It was an unusually large upward revision of its previous growth estimate of 2.7 percent, which was already stronger than economists had predicted. President-elect Clinton said he might rethink his short-term plans to spur the economy. [ Page A1. ]

Until yesterday, the report cards on the Comptronix Corporation, an electronics company in the small Alabama town of Guntersville, were glowing with the praise usually reserved for the best pupils. Prospects for the company, which makes products like electronic circuit boards, in its rapidly expanding high-technology niche were judged most promising. To those who made it their business to know the company, its top executives appeared focused and aware of the challenges they faced to maintain the company's heady growth. As recently as Tuesday, a Merrill Lynch analyst, Melinda Reach, rated the company above average.

When clients first stopped calling her employment service last spring, Mitzie G. thought that the telephone was out of order. Every few hours she checked for a dial tone or crawled under her desk to examine the wiring. Sometimes she had friends ring her to make sure that the lines were working. The truth, as she finally admitted to herself, was that the recession was destroying her business. After nearly a decade of finding jobs for the unemployed, she was joining their ranks. Would she lose her house, which symbolized how hard she had struggled for her children?

Fire Commissioner Carlos M. Rivera, who rose through the ranks to preside over budget cuts and management snarls at the nation's largest fire department, announced yesterday that he would retire in January. Mr. Rivera, the first Hispanic commissioner in the New York City Fire Department's 127-year history, said he was stepping down for personal reasons after 35 years as a firefighter and almost 3 as the department's top official.