California Is Suffering The Worst Unemployment In 70 Years

In California some will work for food

LOS ANGELES — Californias unemployment rate in August hit its highest point in nearly 70 years, starkly underscoring how the nations incipient economic recovery continues to elude millions of Americans looking for work.

While job losses continue to fall, the states new unemployment rate — 12.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — is far above the national average of 9.7 percent and places California, the nations most-populous state, fourth behind Michigan, Nevada and Rhode Island. Statistics kept by the state show Californias unemployment rate was 14.7 percent in 1940, said Kevin Callori, a spokesman for the California Employment Development Department.While California has convulsed under the same blows as the rest of the country over the last two years, its exposure to both the foreclosure crisis and the slowdown in construction — an industry that has fueled growth in much of the state over the last decade — has been outsized.

Total building levels in California have fallen to $23 billion this year from $63 billion in 2005; home building this year is less than a quarter of what it was in 2005, according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. Roughly 500,000 of the states job losses have been in construction, finance, real estate and industries related to construction.