In Southern California unemployment is nearing 10%.  This is a scary number until you put it in perspective.  The base line unemployment is between 3% and 5% and somewhere between 8 and 10% of the jobs in the area are historically in the construction industry.  Construction as we all know has almost stopped.  So the real question is why isn’t unemployment somewhere around 13% (4% +9%)?  Maybe the rest of the economy is stronger than we think?  Perspective.