California's Unemployment Rate Tops 10%

California's unemployment rate rose for the 11th straight month in February, hitting 10.5% as a recession-racked economy shed 116,000 jobs across all professions and industries, the state reported today.

The number was up from 10.1% in January, and it was the highest since April 1983.

Los Angeles County's seasonably adjusted unemployment rate reached 10.9% in February, the Employment Development Department said. (An earlier version of the story said the county unemployment rate reached 11% in February, but that was not the seasonally adjusted number.)

"It's pretty dismal," said Howard Roth, chief economist for the California Department of Finance. "Since October, we've been getting these increasingly larger losses of jobs." Layoffs in February were the largest for a single month in at least 19 years, he said.

And, it appears the rate will continue to rise for the remainder of this year.