Unemployment rate rises throughout the US

A reader recently sent me this article that was posted on careerbuilder that gives some pretty interesting statistics on the current unemployment situation in the United States.

The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics* showed six states recording rates of 9 percent or more. Overall, 10 states had significantly higher jobless rates than the average and 18 had similar rates. Michigan recorded the highest unemployment rate at 10.6 percent, followed closely by Rhode Island at 10.0 percent.

The largest numerical decrease in employment since November 2008 was in California, which lost 78,200 jobs, followed by Michigan, New York, Illinois, Indiana and North Carolina, respectively. Idaho saw the largest percentage cut in employment since December 2008 (1.6 percent), followed by Michigan, Hawaii and Indiana.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia had considerable jobless rate increases since December 2007. Rhode Island had the highest rate increase over the year (4.5 percent), followed by Arizona and Idaho (4.3 percentage points each), Michigan (4.1 percentage point each) and Indiana(3.7 percent). Nine other states and the District of Columbia recorded increases of 3 percentage points or more since December 2007 and 36 states had smaller, but still significant, increases.