98 percent of metro areas see jobless rates rise

WASHINGTON — Unemployment rates moved higher in 98 percent of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, with Indiana's Elkhart-Goshen and Dalton, Ga., registering the biggest annual increases.

The U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday that 363 of the 369 metropolitan areas saw their jobless rates rise in December from a year earlier.

Elkhart-Goshen and Dalton — which both experienced manufacturing layoffs in recent months — had the largest increases in their unemployment rates from December 2007.

Elkhart-Goshen's unemployment rate soared to 15.3 percent in December, up a whopping 10.6 percentage points from December 2007. The area has been bruised by layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry. Hundreds of workers have lost their jobs at RV makers such as Monaco Coach Corp., Keystone RV Co. and Pilgrim International.

The jobless rate in Dalton, home to many floorcovering manufacturers, jumped to 11.2 percent, up 6.2 percentage points from a year earlier.

An avalanche of layoffs is hitting the nation, sparing no state or community.

Fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises — the worst since the 1930s — has plunged the country into a recession, now in its second year. That's taking a heavy toll on workers as companies eliminate jobs, cut or freeze pay and turn to other cost-saving measures to survive the downturn.

El Centro, Calif., continued to lay claim to the nation's highest unemployment rate — 22.6 percent. The jobless rate is notoriously high in the area, where many unemployed are seasonal agriculture workers, including some who live in Mexico to be with family or to cut costs.

Following El Centro were Merced, Calif., with a jobless rate of 15.5 percent, Yuma, Ariz., at 15.4 percent and then Elkhart-Goshen.

Meanwhile, Morgantown, W.Va., and Logan, which straddles Utah and Idaho, registered the lowest unemployment rates of 2.7 percent and 2.8 percent respectively.