Unemployment in San Diego County jumped to 8.6 percent in January as the state government's cash-flow crisis interrupted construction projects and retailers shrank their staffs after a disappointing holiday season, a state agency reported Thursday.
The report from the California Employment Development Department shows the region's jobless rate equal to its peak during the last recession, in the early 1990s, when military bases and defense contractors were cutting jobs after the Cold War.
The jobless rate has risen three times as quickly in the current recession, one of several reasons that most economists expect it to go even higher. Unemployment was at 5.1 percent in January 2008; it took three years to rise to 8.6 percent from that level last time around.
Read the full article in the North County Times.
