Spike!

For the past few months, the Google unemployment index has been bouncing around the same high level.  This week it spiked upwards to set a new high (click graph to enlarge).

This index measures frequency of unemployment related Google searches, so it's an indirect measure – more a measure of interest in unemployment, rather than of unemployment itself.  But why should even that have peaked last week?

In an odd coincidence, my good friend and neighbor lost his job just over a week ago when his company filed for bankruptcy.  Maybe the spike is due to his queries?