Sobering job stats

Among the 29 metro areas in the U.S. with unemployment rates of at least 15 percent, 13 were in California. Ouch. At the very top were El Centro (27.2 percent), Merced (22.1 percent), and Yuba City (21.6 percent), all places with chronically high unemployment, even in good times. The greater L.A. metro area (which includes Long Beach and OC) had a jobless rate of 11.7 percent in February, down from 12.4 percent the previous month. Of course, things are bad all over: February unemployment rates were higher than a year earlier in 347 of the 372 metropolitan areas. (Here's the BLS release). One point about the L.A. number: If you break it down by what the government calls "metropolitan divisions," L.A. winds up with a higher rate than OC, which is normally the way it works.

Bakersfield-Delano....................17.4%

Chico................................14.9

El Centro............................ 27.2

Fresno................................18.5

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana...... 11.7

Modesto..............................19.1

Napa..................................10.4

Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura.......... 11.1

Redding............................... 17.7

Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario......14.7

Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Roseville....12.8

San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos.........10.6

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont.........10.7

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara........12.1

San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles...........10.2

Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta......9.9

Stockton..............................18.4

Yuba City.............................21.6