Joblessness is becoming worse by the day. December 2009 alone resulted in 85,000 jobs being axed and over 500,000 individuals left to find work in a scant job market.

An even more depressing fact is that the unemployment rate held steady at 10 percent but not because there weren't people being laid off or fired. Nay, it was because so many people stopped looking for work and are technically not counted as unemployed.

Counting the people who have given up looking for work and the part-time workers who would rather be working full-time, the so-called underemployment rate edged up to 17.3 percent in December. The record high is 17.4 percent, reached in October.

But the jobless rate is likely to rise in coming months as more people see signs of an improving economy and start looking for work again. Some economists think it could near 11 percent, which would be the highest since World War II, by June.

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