IC #2 for Lowest Unemployment

IC at 3.7%; Ames at 3.8%

Layoffs tied to the troubled housing and autos industries clobbered the West and Midwest in May and helped raise unemployment rates in all the largest metropolitan areas for the fifth straight month.

All 372 metro areas saw joblessness rise in May from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The highest rates - of at least 15 percent - were concentrated in metro areas in California, Michigan and Indiana.

The news was less bleak for Bismarck, which registered May's lowest jobless rate of 3.5 percent. North Dakota has been helped by the oil business. Bismarck was followed by Iowa City, Iowa, home of the University of Iowa, with an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent, and Ames, Iowa, at 3.8 percent.