Unemployment rates rose in all of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas for the third straight month in March, with Indiana’s Elkhart-Goshen once again logging the biggest gain.
The United States Labor Dept. reported Wednesday all 372 metropolitan areas tracked saw jobless rates move higher last month from a year earlier. Elkhart-Goshen’s rate soared to 18.8 percent, a 13 percentage-point increase. That was the fourth-highest jobless rate in the country.
The Indiana region has been hammered by layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry. RV makers Monaco Coach Corp. Keystone RV Co. and Pilgrim International have sliced hundreds of jobs.
The jobless rate jumped to 17 percent in Bend, Ore., a 9.2 percentage-point rise and the second-biggest monthly gainer. Bend for years has been the center of the central Oregon real estate and construction boom, largely fueled by retirees from California. Many of them bought vacation or retirement homes in high-end rural developments called destination resorts, which the state began allowing in 1984 as an exception to land use laws that otherwise aim to preserve rural land from development.
The credit crunch and falling home prices have made it harder for retirees to cash out of their existing homes. Part of the area also features easy access to skiing, mountain biking, hunting, fishing and golf. But as unemployment rises, state analysts have cited weakness in the service and entertainment sectors.
Roger Lee, executive director of the nonprofit Economic Development for Central Oregon, said losses in construction jobs have battered the area, with the impact rippling through retail and service sectors. The region’s unemployment rate also has been affected by a growth in the labor force. State officials believe that is due to spouses going back into the job market to keep households afloat and retirees returning to work to supplement damaged retirement savings accounts.
Rounding out the top three was North Carolina’s Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, which saw its unemployment rate rise to 15.4 percent last month, an increase of 9.1 percentage points. That region has been especially hard hit by heavy layoffs in manufacturing amid a recession that is nearing a record as the longest in the post World War II period.
El Centro, Calif., continued to claim the highest unemployment rate _ 25.1 percent. The jobless rate there is notoriously high because there are so many unemployed seasonal agriculture workers.
