Jul. 4--The wild card of the U.S. auto industry has left metro Louisville with a tough hand on the unemployment front.

Metro Louisville's jobless rate jumped nearly a full percentage point in May, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report released Tuesday. The May total shot up to 10.2 percent from 9.4 percent in April.

The national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent.

The May 2008 to May 2009 losses represent the biggest percentage decline since 1990, with more than 29,500 positions lost in that time locally, according to Uric Dufrene, Sanders chair of the Indiana University Southeast business department.

The year-over-year losses are grouped into four main categories, with cuts in the construction, manufacturing, transportation and utilities, and leisure and hospitality sectors accounting for 83 percent of the losses, according to Dufrene.

"The most significant acceleration in job losses occurred in manufacturing. Most of these losses were in durable goods, or specifically transportation equipment," he said.

"Manufacturing losses are influenced by problems related in the auto industry. Other manufacturing sectors are also impacted by the national declines in consumer spending."

Over the past three months, Dufrene stated the car industry would be the wild card for unemployment figures nationwide, especially in Indiana, though job loss counts had started to improve during that time.

Setbacks continued to mount for U.S. automakers General Motors and Ford, with the latest news impacting the foreign market of the companies. Both corporations suspended manufacturing in Russia on Wednesday.

"Having carefully studied the state of the Russian car market and the extent of the reduction in the demand from the creditworthy population, we have decided not to force a production increase at our Russian plant this year," Chris Gubbey, GM Russia's president, told the Associated Press.

New Albany did receive some good news on the employment front as it pertains to manufacturing. As first reported in The Tribune last month, local industry Kemper Foods International is planning an expansion that could bring 1,000 jobs to the city within a year.

On June 18, The New Albany City Council approved on first reading a measure to use $625,000 in tax-increment finance bonds to front bonds for Kemper's expansion. The industry would use the new employees and machinery to serve food distributors.