Jobless in El Centro

The Imperial Valley community is accustomed to high rates of unemployment, but 30 percent? October's jobless rate was higher than for any metropolitan area in the U.S., though at least it eased a bit from the previous month. Looking over the Labor Department's list, no other place in California scored nearly so high. Here's a sampler (remember, these are for metro areas, which are different than counties):

--Bakersfield 14.5%
--El Centro 30.0%
--Fresno 15.8%
--Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana 11.9%
--Modesto 16.6%
--Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura 11.1%
--Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario 14.6%
--San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos 10.5%
--San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont 10.6%
--San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara 11.9%
--Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta 8.8%
--Stockton 16.1%

As you can see, inland agricultural communities are the worst off. Here's the BLS list But getting back to El Centro -- here's a nugget from CNNMoney.com:

Everyone has been hit hard in El Centro. The unemployment rate has been above 30% since July, peaking in August at 33.1%, but is beginning to subside. And the holiday season might brighten the picture. "It's more the perception of having the highest unemployment rate in the country that is harder to deal with than the actual rate," said Larry Bratton, a jewelry store owner in El Centro, who hasn't had to lay off any employees during the recession.