From ABCnews.com:

The 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates, by percentage, are:

1. North Dakota 4.2

2. Nebraska 4.9

3. South Dakota 5.0

4. Montana 6.4

5. Vermont 6.5

6. Utah 6.5

7. Virginia 6.6

8. Iowa 6.7

9. New Hampshire 6.8

10. Kansas 6.8

I’m guessing many of these states are dominated by agricultural professions which are obviously less effected by corporate employment.

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Every week more numbers come out to reveal another level of ugliness in this economy.  Today comes this article from CNNMoney.com.  The state that speaks volumes:

Every state had an unemployment rate in October that was higher than a year ago, and every state has lost jobs over the course of the year.

The recovery from this recession is going to take a long time as the hole keeps getting deeper.  I think it is safe to say that the unemployment rate is higher then what is being reported:

Unemployment rates, which are taken from a separate survey, tend to rise even as the employers start hiring again, because the survey only counts people who are looking for work. When times are bad, many people become discouraged and give up their job search, so they are not counted in the unemployment data.

We’ve seen this first-hand in our business as one of our customers simply stopped their salesperson search and decided to hunker down until the economy turns.  I certainly understand the approach as long as your competitors are taking the same approach.  If one of them is well-funded, they may realize that this is an opportune time to grab some market share.

I’ll close with a ridiculous headline from the same site:  Is TARP bailout helping the economy?

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