BOISE -- On the same day congress approved the financial bailout plan, the US Labor Department released its job loss report, and Idaho unemployment numbers have soared.

In the last twelve months the unemployment rate in our state has nearly doubled to five-percent.

From the computer at the Department of Labor Office, Kathy Coles desperately looks for a job.  She's been out of work for the past two months, after she says she was laid off from a restaurant because business wasn't good.

"There was a time when I wouldn't have any problem,” said Coles, “I would come in here two or three times after getting laid off or getting fired and within a week, I would have another job."

But those times are now gone.  Around the labor office, nearly every computer is being used, each person there is also looking for a job.  It makes the competition stiff for many.

"Now you have at any given point 20, 30, 100 people applying for the same job, it's not easy," said Brian Reyes, going on 11 months unemployed.

And the most recent unemployment numbers say it's only going to get harder.  Today Idaho’s unemployment rate hit five percent; it's nearly than doubled since this time last year.

According to the Department of Labor, with the rise, there are now 37,800 people without jobs in Idaho.  42-percent of those people come from the Boise metropolitan area, that includes Ada, Canyon, Boise, Gem and Owyhee counties.

KTVB.COM/ Paul Boehlke

The upside, to this crisis, this is not the worst our state has seen.  That was back in 1982 when the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent.

 A frustrating task that Reyes says is getting harder and harder to make happen.

"It's like playing the lotto every week you know. I am very frustrated," said Reyes

Only Reyes and Coles aren't hoping to strike it rich, just get a job that can help them live.

"Putting in applications, making resumes, cover letters, setting up appointments, and it’s been over a month now and I still don't have, I have had nibbles, but I haven't had that job application yet," said Coles.

So how much does this unemployment cost Idaho?

During the month of September, Idaho paid 2.6 million dollars a week in unemployment benefits. That's one million dollars a week more than was paid this time last year.