Most US metro areas see jobless rates rise

WASHINGTON - Unemployment rates moved higher in the vast majority of the nation's 369 metropolitan areas, with Indiana's Elkhart-Goshen and Dalton, Ga., registering the biggest annual increases.

The Labor Department says 363 of the 369 metropolitan areas saw their jobless rates rise in December from a year earlier.

Elkhart-Goshen and Dalton which both experienced manufacturing layoffs in recent months had the largest increases in their unemployment rates from December 2007.

Elkhart-Goshen's unemployment rate soared to 15.3 percent in December, up a whopping 10.6 percentage points from December 2007. Dalton's jobless rate soared to 11.2 percent, up 6.2 percentage points from a year earlier.

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