California’s unemployment rate hit a staggering 11.2 percent in March 2009. That is the highest rate ever in California since modern records started being kept by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to the report, only three states have higher rates of unemployment: Michigan, Oregon and South Carolina. California’s unemployment rate is significantly higher than the national unemployment rate, which is currently at 8.5%. Many economists expect both the national and California rate to increase over the next few months.
California suffered across the board, with government jobs falling significantly along with private sector jobs. California has also been hit hard by the collapse of the housing market, since real estate prices were particularly high in California prior to the burst of the real estate bubble.
The number of Californians out of work has more than doubled in the last year. Approximately 2 million Californians are currently unemployed, while 913,000 were out of work a year ago. About 859,000 Californians are currently receiving unemployment benefits, a number that is expected to grow significantly.
According to most economic forecasts, notably one conducted by UCLA, the unemployment rate is expected to rise this year and into 2010, with the national rate to increase to about 10%, and the California rate to hit 12% at least.
If you have a job, thank your lucky stars. If you don’t, best of luck to you. It’s not you, it’s the economy. Unfortunately, things are looking quite grim for the foreseeable future. Obama touted a few “glimmers of hope” in the economy recently, as reported here. Clearly, the numbers are not supporting Obama’s optimism.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
there is a name for the california problem
death spiral
April 18th, 2009 at 8:06 am
hey hoss, you forget a lot of cali’s live in gated communities, many with rent a cops, and have a lot of money so those enclaves will survive. Even places like LA is highly diversified and its financial and fashion, movie, music, and entertainment sectors will continue chugging out C rated stuff, but basically enough to keep them ongoing concerns. Some areas like the Inland Empire will suffer more and places like Oakland and Richmond etc will continue to be scary. Even with huge numbers of homeless roaming almost unseen in the urban areas, there is still a lot of accumulated wealth. They may cut services, shutter schools, lay off teachers, hospitals etcc, but they always do that in cali downturns. What will happen is fewer people and businesses will move there. The standard of living in cali has been down for decades so it will just get a bit worse again, nothing new there. Meanwhile it continues to get more expensive. still enough money to fuel all the police helicoptors flying overhead though