California Unemployment Rockets to 9.3%

Businessweek reports:

The jobless rate announced Friday by the state Employment Development Department represents a jump from the 8.4 percent figure in November 2008.

Excluding farmworkers, California lost 78,200 jobs in December as employers sliced payrolls to deal with the slowing economy.

California's unemployment rate hasn't been at this level since January 1994, when the state was coming out of its recession in the early part of that decade, said Stephen Levy, senior economist for the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

Source: BLS