Experts say the increase in unemployment during the final months of 2008 will continue long into the new year as the labor market feels the effects of the financial crisis.
According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, 2008 had the largest increase in unemployment since the end of World War II.
In 2008, 2.6 million people lost their jobs, with 1.9 million going unemployed since September, resulting in a 7.2 percent national unemployment rate.
According to experts, these job losses will make finding employment even harder for young people entering the market.
The competition for jobs will be tougher for them,"" UW-Madison professor of public affairs Carolyn Heinrich said, adding the search could be hard even when the crisis ends.
Workers laid off by firms during difficult economic times are usually the first hired when the business recovers. Students, who have comparatively less experience, are less likely to be hired.
President-elect Obama has called the crisis dire and warned it ""demands urgent and immediate action.""
His plan to help Americans find jobs would involve putting them to work on infrastructure projects, improving roads and highways.
Joel Rogers, a UW-Madison law professor and director of the Center of Wisconsin Strategy, said he would like to see Obama's plan coupled with more ""green-collar"" jobs, increasing employment in environmentally friendly industries.
However, Rogers said recovering from the crisis will be a long and difficult process.
""The facts speak for themselves,"" he said. ""It's an economy with some serious problems.""
Rogers also said he thinks the federal government should bail out state governments to relieve their massive budget deficits and help stimulate the economy.
Andrew Reschovsky, a UW-Madison professor of public affairs and economics, said states have been hit especially hard by the crisis.
""The amount of money that the state has to provide services has been falling. At the same time, the cost of doing what the state has been doing continues to rise,"" he said.
Although Wisconsin has not been hit by unemployment as hard as other upper-Midwestern states, it faces a record $5.4 billion budget deficit for the 2009-'11 biennium.
Reschovsky said state governments will have to decide how they want to repay their debts, either by increasing revenue, decreasing spending or relying on a federal stimulus package.
Budget cuts affecting the University of Wisconsin could bring tuition increases or staff layoffs.
However, Reschovsky warns the pain felt in the job market and state governments is by no means over. He said no one truly knows when the crisis will end and it ""may even get worse before it gets better.""
