Richmond’s unemployed workers did the best they could to shake off yesterday’s bad news that the U.S. unemployment rate hit double digits. They got back to the main task: finding work. The nation’s jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent last month from 9.8 percent. The unemployment rate is the highest in 26½ years. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the number of people on employers’ payrolls fell by 190,000—more than economists, who just last week were hailing the end of the recession, had forecast.

Virginia’s unemployment rate bucked the national trend and fell last month, remaining well below the nation’s rate. The state’s unemployed accounted for 6.5 percent of the work force in August, down from 6.9 percent in July and 7.1 percent in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday. The seasonally adjusted rate was still much higher than the 4.1 percent reported in August 2008.

Nearly every morning, Anthony A. Smith catches the bus from his Petersburg home to a Virginia Employment Commission work-force center in Hopewell. He spends about five hours a day working on his résumé, cover letters and numerous job applications. This month alone, he has been to five job interviews. But after nearly 18 months of actively seeking employment, he’s still jobless.

Students entering an already-clogged job market and cuts in the automotive industry propelled Virginia’s jobless rate up 0.3 percentage points to 7.3 percent in June, the Virginia Employment Commission reported yesterday. A year ago, Virginia’s unemployment rate was 4 percent. The seasonally unadjusted rate is lower than the national average, which is 9.7 percent, according to data released yesterday.

Nine of Virginia’s 10 metropolitan areas—including Richmond—experienced smaller unemployment lines in April from March, according to a report released yesterday by the Virginia Employment Commission. Despite that drop, the rate is expected to increase this year statewide and nationally—but not at the fast pace that it has in the past several months.

Virginia’s jobless rate remained steady from March to April, but economists say it’s too early to celebrate the end of the recession. While the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose 0.4 percentage points to 8.9 percent in April, Virginia’s stayed at 6.8 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Even though the unemployment rate was unchanged in Virginia, the underlying numbers show that the economy is still contracting,“ said Christine Chmura of Chmura Economics & Analytics in Richmond. “We still have 4,000 more people unemployed.“

Evidence is piling up that the worst part of the recession has ended. But that doesn’t mean the pain is over. A better-than-expected unemployment report yesterday—job losses in April declined to the lowest level in six months—capped a week of encouraging news, including firmer home sales, a revival in consumer spending and fresh optimism about the biggest U.S. banks.

The Richmond area’s unemployment rate held steady at 7.8 percent from February to March. The jobless rate, which is not seasonally adjusted, for the state remained at 7 percent for the second month in a row, according to data released yesterday by the Virginia Employment Commission. It is the first time since September 2008 that the monthly rate has not gone up in Virginia.

As the state announced a 1 percentage-point jump yesterday in the Richmond region’s jobless rate to 7.9 percent, another major layoff began to hit the area. Wachovia Securities laid off 500 employees as the single biggest chunk of job losses from the ongoing merger with A.G. Edwards.

Virginia’s unemployment rate spiked to 5.2 percent in December, hitting its highest point in nearly 13 years. An increasing number of permanent layoffs, longer holiday furloughs and lackluster hiring in the retail sector led to the increase, said William F. Mezger, Virginia Employment Commission chief economist.