Posted: June 20th, 2008, 6:00am PDT
You may have heard earlier this week that Michigan's unemployment rate took a big jump in the month of May. As new job seekers - many of them young people - entered the work force, they weren't able to find the jobs they were looking for, pushing our unemployment rate to over 8 percent.
While any increase in the unemployment rate is unacceptable, Michigan can't escape the effects of $4-a-gallon gas, contraction in the automotive sector, and the sub-prime lending crisis that's battering the national economy. The national jobless rate also soared in May, increasing by more in a single month than any time in more than 20 years.