California’s unemployment rate has hit a new high at 12.5 percent according to the Employment Development Department.  The rate is up from 12.2 in September even with about 25,700 job gains last month the rate still rose, they announced Friday. As a job seeker, this sucks. I got laid off about four months ago. The vacation is over. My house bugs me, my wife irritates me more than she should and I know it’s all my fault. This article makes it seem as though there is no end in sight and doesn’t make me feel good about my prospects, especially in tech-savvy San Jose, where searching for ‘writer’ brings up more coding and programming jobs than media jobs. Santa Clara County is at 11.9 percent, the report says.

The report said that Imperial County along the Mexican border had the worst rate at 30 percent. Nationwide, California ranked fourth highest in states reporting unemployment rate increases behind Michigan, Nevada and Rhode Island. The US unemployment rate also rose to 10.2 percent. Sweet.

You’ve got to wonder how much worse it can get.  At this time last year, October, 2008 the rate was 8.0 percent and 1.5 million out of work, according to the EDD report. Today there are 2.3 million, which doesn’t include all the folks looking for work, working for less, or the estimated 100,000 who have quit looking altogether. It is discouraging to look for work when the same jobs are always there and you know 40,000 people applied for it. Politicians offer warm advice about ‘green shoots’ but I’ve got to wonder if the soothing talk approach will work much longer.