State unemployment rate jumps higher

Michigan's unemployment rate hit 12.6 percent for March, reflecting almost a quarter of a million lost jobs in the past 12 months.

The rate jumped six-tenths of a percent from February's even 12 percent, the state Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth said Wednesday. The March rate is a full five points higher than the March 2008 jobless level of 7.6 percent.

"Wow. What can you say? It's horrible," said Don Grimes, senior research specialist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy. "Although it's not surprising, given what's happened with the national unemployment rate."

March unemployment in the United States increased to 8.5 percent, up 68.3 percent in the past 12 months.

It's a trend that has only made things worse for Michigan's spiraling auto-dependent economy.

"We're in an especially vulnerable position," Grimes said. "Even if we get a national recovery, Michigan's unemployment rate will continue to rise over the course of the next year."

Grimes said he sees the state jobless level going as high as 15 percent in the next six months, but that the state's shrinking work force will keep Michigan from reclaiming its 1982 all-time high of 16.9 percent.

"People are simply giving up looking for work, and that's what will keep us from getting back to our record," he said.

Michigan's labor force shrank by 16,000 in March

The biggest drop came in the professional and business services sector, where 8,000 jobs were lost, including a large amount of pink-slipped temporary workers, said Bruce Weaver, an economic analyst with the labor department.

In the past 12 months, that sector lost 71,000 jobs, second only to 96,000 that disappeared in the manufacturing sector.

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