SACRAMENTO AND LOS ANGELES — Unemployment in California rose sharply in December to 9.3%, its highest level in 15 years, as the state's jobless rolls swelled to 1.7 million.
More than 78,000 people lost their jobs in December, and thousands more have received pink slips so far this month. Economists said layoffs were likely to remain heavy during the first half of 2009 and could reach as high as 11%. Improvement could come later in the year, they noted, if the federal government starts pumping billions of dollars into the Golden State for public works and social programs.
On Friday, the state Employment Development Department reported that the jobless number jumped almost a full percentage point from 8.4% in November. It stood at 5.9% a year earlier.
The rate for Los Angeles County, which like the state number is seasonally adjusted, was 9.9% for December, up from a revised 8.9% for November. Joblessness topped 10% in the Inland Empire, as it did in 31 of California's 58 counties.
Alarming as they are, the state's numbers tell only half the story. They don't include the discouraged -- who have given up looking for a job -- the self-employed or people who work for cash, whose wages are not reported.
Although the U.S. Department of Labor won't release state-by-state data until early next week, an informal survey ranked California as having the nation's third-worst unemployment, behind Michigan at 10.6% and Rhode Island at 10%.
"We're going from bad to worse and then ugly," said Esmael Adibi, an economist with Chapman University in Orange. "It's going to be really nasty the next couple of quarters. But if [federal] tax cuts kick in and there's a little infrastructure spending, hopefully the third and fourth quarters won't be as bad."
Adibi stressed that a federal bailout couldn't come soon enough for a California economy that's been racked by lackluster holiday sales, continued drops in home values, waves of real estate foreclosures and a heightened tempo of layoffs at companies across all sectors of the economy.
"The original weakness in construction and financial services is spilling over everywhere," Adibi said.
The widespread layoffs are turning job hunts into a desperate business for people such as Adriean Arreola, 27, of Boyle Heights.
"You've got to stay positive, but the economy is falling," he said while looking for postings at a job center in north Los Angeles. "So, it can be hard."
