Unemployment Rates Allover the Map

I saw an interesting map of the unemployment rates allover the US right now, and with a few exceptions (very few unfortunately), unemployment has pretty much unanimously risen across the board, especially in states like Florida and California, where the downturn is really affecting people of all walks of life, there are some huge hefty mortgages to be paid and a high standard of living, and jobs pay a lot of money because the cost of living and standards are so high for the people that live out that way in most areas.

In my home state of Ohio, I took a quick look at the mouse over map, which listed unemployment rates by county, and saw that most of the counties that surround me and the country I live in, have double digit unemployment numbers, and this number rose considerably just recently, which tells me that the recession and economy may be in the middle of getting to be it’s worst, so it’s still going to be years before we’re out of the woods.

Not one financial or economic guru seems to be comfortable with calling the “bottom” of this economy, or of predicting when the leading indicator that things are going to get better – the jobs market – is going to see serious signs of improvement. I mean, the company I work for has been downsizing some departments now for months, and in my department we have been lucky enough not to get hit by this because of the work we do as well as the fact that for a large corporation, we are such a small by numbers group, which doesn’t make us a larger target for cutbacks.

Believe me, I feel seriously lucky that this is my situation, as I know that there are a lot of others out there that are not so fortunate and would give their right arm for my job, or for any job for that matter, in this day and age. There are some lucky areas that have not been hit by the recession as hard, but most areas have been , and it’s been like a slow domino effect.