Marion County had the second-highest unemployment rate in the state, behind Allendale County, for May, according to the latest report from the S.C. Employment Security Commission.
Marlboro County had the state’s third-highest rate in May, when the state’s overall unemployment rate rose sharply compared with the rates from the previous year.
Marlboro County, however, saw the only drop in unemployment rates in seven Pee Dee counties, going from 11.9 percent in April to 11 percent in May.
Marion, Florence and Dillon counties tied for the largest increase in unemployment rates in the seven Pee Dee counties at 0.7 percent.
Chesterfield County showed a 0.2 percent increase, Williamsburg County rose 0.3 percent and Darlington County had a 0.1-percent rise in unemployment.
Sam McClary, a senior analyst at the commission who works in the department of labor market information, said the state did gain jobs, but not like it is used to.
“Overall, we did gain jobs (during the past month) but it was a small gain compared to what we normally should be getting this time of year,” he said. “We gained 7,800 (jobs) statewide and we should be picking up somewhere between 10,000 to 20,000.”
McClary said the poor economy partly is to blame for the shift.
“The economy has been slow for quite a while,” he said. “The national rate went up from 5.0 percent to 5.5 percent. We followed that.”
One of the hardest hit areas of employment was the construction industry, McClary said.
“Construction jobs experienced their seventh straight month of decline and that is related to the housing crisis,” he said.
May’s report was released the same day as an announcement from Washington Mutual stating plans to cut about 1,200 jobs nationwide. With an office located in Florence, it could mean bad news for the Pee Dee. No one at Washington Mutual’s media relations office in Seattle could be reached for comment about how the cutbacks might affect the Florence office.
“Things are bad enough as they are,” McClary said.
During May, the state’s labor force totaled 2,152,400, an increase of 13,400 from the April numbers.
Among fields showing an increase in jobs were leisure and hospitality, government and retail.
The manufacturing and construction fields cut about 400 jobs during May.
According to May’s report, the recent rise in prices of necessary items, such as gasoline and food, caused more people of working age to attempt to rejoin the work force during a time when college graduates already are putting a strain on the job market in their search for employment opportunities.
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