WASHINGTON — Forty-two states lost jobs last month, up from 29 in July, with the biggest net-payroll cuts coming in Texas, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio. The Labor Department also reported Friday that 27 states saw their unemployment rates increase in August, and 14 states and Washington, D.C., reported unemployment rates of 10 percent or more.
The report shows that jobs remain scarce, even as most analysts believe the economy is pulling out of the worst recession since the 1930s. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said earlier this week that the recovery isn’t likely to be rapid enough to reduce unemployment for some time.
The jobless rate nationwide is expected to peak above 10 percent next year, from its current 9.7 percent.
“You are seeing the pace of job losses slow a little bit,” said Mike Lynch, a regional economist at IHS Global Insight. But states “are not out of the woods yet.”
The U.S. lost 216,000 jobs in August, the department said earlier this month, down from 276,000 in July. Employers have eliminated 6.9 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.
Michigan’s unemployment rate rose to 15.2 percent, the highest in the nation. Nevada has the second-highest rate at 13.2 percent, followed by Rhode Island at 12.8 percent, and California and Oregon at 12.2 percent each.
The jobless rates in California, Nevada and Rhode Island were the highest on records dating to 1976. California and Nevada have been slammed by the housing bust, while Rhode Island has lost thousands of manufacturing and government jobs in the past year.
