Jobs, Jobless | featured news

Call it the recession's lost generation. In record numbers, they're struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they're becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II, and they risk living in poverty more than others - nearly 1 in 5.

More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, the first increase in three weeks and evidence that the job market is still sluggish.

California's unemployment rate ticked down to 11.9% in April after the state added 8,900 jobs, a relatively small number in a state still suffering from the Great Recession.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell sharply for the second straight week, suggesting the job market is slowly recovering.

The unemployment rate rose in 20 states last month as employers in most states shed jobs....

The state is borrowing $40 million a day from the federal government to provide assistance to jobless workers, but has resisted changing the formulas it uses to determine and fund those benefits.California's fund for paying unemployment insurance is broke.

New claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to a three-month low, hinting at some improvement in the listless labor market.

The state, which has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation, lost 63,500 jobs in September. In Los Angeles County, the unemployment rate was 12.6%, up from 12.2% a year ago. California's economy continued to suffer in September as employers cut jobs from payrolls and the state's unemployment rate remained steady at 12.4%.

Two Americans and a British-Cypriot economist have won a Nobel prize for a theory that helps explain why many people can remain unemployed despite a large number of job vacancies.

Employers appear to be laying off workers again as the economic recovery weakens. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November.