Click here to view a larger version.) / " title="ABOVE, THE STATE-BY-STATE UNEMPLOYMENT picture in February. The darker-colored states had higher jobless rates. (Click here to view a larger version.) /"/>PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island had the third-worst unemployment rate in the nation for the third month in a row in February, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday.
The jobless rate in Rhode Island stayed at 12.7 percent in February, unchanged from the prior two months. Michigan’s unemployment rate continued to be the worst, at 14.1 percent, followed by Nevada at 13.2 percent.
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Behind Nevada and Rhode Island in February were California and South Carolina (12.5 percent each) and Florida (12.2 percent). In all, unemployment rates rose in 27 states and fell in seven last month. The national jobless rate stayed at 9.7 percent.
“Until we see improvement in employment in a fair number of U.S. states, it’s not going to do a heck of a lot for the recovery,” Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, told Bloomberg News. “The worst seems to be over, but there’s a huge amount of work to be done to create jobs. It’s going to be a long, winding road.”
Rhode Island continued to be an outlier in the region last month, as the Northeast posted the nation’s lowest regional jobless rate in February at 9.1 percent.
Rhode Island lost 13,300 jobs from February 2009 to February 2010, shrinking the state’s payrolls to 453,600, the lowest total number since November 1997, excluding the current downturn.
