Unemployment rates rose in all of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas for the second straight month in February. The U.S. Labor Department reported today all 372 metropolitan areas tracked saw their jobless rates rise in February from a year earlier. Indiana’s Elkhart-Goshen and North Carolina’s Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, both hammered by manufacturing layoffs, registered the biggest annual increases.
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 8.1% in February, the highest in more than 25 years. Economists predict the national jobless rate will climb to 8.5% in March. The government releases that report Friday. It will probably hit 10% by year-end even if the recession were to end later this year, they said.
El Centro, Calif., continued to lay claim to the highest unemployment rate — 24.5%. The jobless rate is notoriously high in the area, where many unemployed are seasonal agriculture workers.
Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux region had the lowest unemployment rate at 3.5%. The area, with about 200,000 residents, is on the coast and serves as a vital support area for the offshore petroleum industry in the Gulf of Mexico. Because of deepwater drilling in the Gulf, where projects take years to complete and bring to production, there has been little short-term effect from low energy prices. “The problem is they can’t find enough people,” said economist Loren Scott, who studies the state’s employment picture. “They’d love to find more.”
Baton Rouge had a 5.1% unemployment rate, tied with Santa Fe, N.M, and Rapid City, S.D., for the 23rd lowest for metro areas.
