Labor data showed that the Black unemployment rate rose from 11.9 percent last December to 12.6 percent in January, more than any other racial group, keeping Blacks as the largest percentage of unemployed people in the work force, the data shows.Latino unemployment rose from 9.2 percent to 9.7 percent and white unemployment rose from 6.6 percent to 6.9.

But the numbers can be misleading. While Black unemployment is higher than any other group, it doesn't necessarily mean there are more Blacks being laid off. Blacks currently make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but only 10 percent of the work force.

The grim numbers are the latest data in the ongoing recession that began in December 2007. While last month saw a 5 percent decline in the number of Chapter 11 filings from December 2008, economists are still predicting more significant declines.

Jack Williams, senior resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute, predicts that Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings will rise at least 40 percent over the previous year in 2009, according to the Dow Jones Bankruptcy Review. And that's seeing the glass as half-full.

"I think 40 percent is optimistic," Williams told the Review. "It could very well be worse."

Women as the majority workforce

Meanwhile, as unemployment numbers continue to soar, reports indicate that the recession may actually lead to women being the majority of the nation's work force. A stunning 82 percent of jobs lost have been positions held by men, according to The New York Times.

The figure is as disproportionate as it is because many of the industries hit hardest by the recession are male-dominated.

"Given how stark and concentrated the job losses are among men, and that women represented a high proportion of the labor force in the beginning of this recession, women are now bearing the burden--or the opportunity, one could say--of being breadwinners," Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, told the Times.

If the current trend continues, women, who currently represent 49.1 percent of the overall work force, could soon represent more than half of the overall force.