"SACRAMENTO -- California's unemployment rate rose by a whopping half a percentage point in March, reaching 6.2% as a weakening economy shed jobs in the ailing construction and financial activities sectors. In all, 1.13 million were unemployed.
"This is a huge increase," said Howard Roth, chief economist for the state Department of Finance. He blamed the steady rise in joblessness -- up from 5.0% in March 2007 -- on deterioration of the crucial housing market. "The bubble has a slow leak, so it's hard to tell how long it will take" to fully deflate, he said.
The uptick in people losing their jobs "means more bad news ahead for state and local [government] budgets," said Stephen Levy, director and chief economist of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.
Levy noted that California's unemployment rate is the third highest in the country, trailing Michigan with 7.2% and Alaska with 6.7%. California is doing worse than Pennsylvania and Ohio, Levy said, the two Rust Belt states that have figured prominently in the presidential primary elections because of their lost manufacturing jobs."-LAT
