Metropolitan Unemployment Rises Again

By Sam Wechsler – Talk Radio News Service

On Tuesday morning the Labor Department released numbers that show for the fifth consecutive month the jobless rate in metro areas increased from a year earlier. In May 2009, the national unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent from last years’ 5.2 percent. The unemployment rate was higher than it was in May 2008 in all 372 metropolitan areas.

Two metropolitan areas in Indiana, Kokomo and Elkhart-Goshen, experienced the greatest increase in unemployment from May 2008, increasing by 11.7 and 11.4 percent respectively. These large increases are attributed mainly to layoffs in the transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

The Detroit Metropolitan area reported the highest unemployment rate in May 2009, 14.9 percent, among areas with greater than one million inhabitants during the 2000 census. The largest unemployment rate in the country, 26.8 percent, was reported in El Centro, California; Yuma, Arizona was second at 23.3 percent. Bismarck, North Dakota boasted the lowest jobless rate at 3.5 percent.

All metropolitan employment information for May 2009 can be viewed at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/metro.pdf