California's unemployment rate reached 12.6 percent in March, compared with 12.5 percent in February, it was announced on Friday.

California was tied with Rhode Island for the third-highest unemployment rate in the United States, after Michigan and Nevada, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The national unemployment rate in March was 9.7 percent.

Though the Golden State added jobs, more than 2.3 million Californians are still unemployed, the California Employment Development Department (CEDD) said.

In March, California's nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 4,200.

With the economy still in recession, unemployment will remain a persistent problem through at least the end of the year, analysts said.

The CEDD said that tens of thousands have been out of work so long, and they will see their unemployment checks cut off within the next few weeks.

Despite President Barack Obama's approval on Thursday of an 18- billion-dollar measure that extends jobless benefits for many Americans through June 2, about 100,000 Californians will have exhausted their benefits completely by this weekend, the department said.

These Californians are not helped by the measure passed on Thursday, according to the department.

"Jobs have not been quickly multiplying, so there's a lot of people who are still in need of assistance," said Loree Levy, a spokeswoman with the Employment Development Department.

Typically, unemployment benefits in California last 26 weeks. But in the last two years, four sets of federal extensions have added 53 weeks. Another program, called FED-ED in California, added 20 weeks on top of that, bringing the total potential benefits to 99 weeks.