PICKENS COUNTY —The unemployment rate in Pickens County is lower than the state figure, but it's still too high, officials say.

State officials announced Thursday that the jobless rate rose to a record high 12.1 percent in May, but the rate is 10.2 percent in Pickens County, almost 2 percent lower than the state.

But that’s still 6,232 people without a job, said Ray Farley, executive director of Alliance Pickens.

However, he attributed the lower rate here to the Pickens County Commerce Park, which currently employs 1,100 people in its industries – Reliable Sprinklers, St. Jude and Keymark.

That number will rise when Tri Tech USA comes on line with 40 to 50 jobs in October and a second St. Jude facility is fully staffed with 300 workers, he said.

“Hopefully that will give some folks hope that there are going to be more jobs coming,” he said.

Without the jobs at the commerce park, our unemployment rate would easily be 1 percent higher, he added.

Currently, the park is roughly halfway full, and Farley said recruiting efforts for new industry continue.

“Even in this down economy, we’re still seeing prospect activity, particularly in the life science and alternative energy markets,” he said.

Another factor that has stopped the jobless rate from rising as high is the state is efforts from Alliance Pickens to “aggressively help existing industries keep their doors open and expand,” Farley said.

Along with faring better than most of the state, Pickens County is also holding up better than most of the Upstate, except for Greenville County, which has the same rate.

Farley noted that some workers in the county commute to Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg and Oconee counties for employment.

“All the counties affect each other that way,” he said.

But some economists are predicting the jobless rate to get even worse across the entire state.

Don Schunk of Coastal Carolina told the Board of Economic Advisors last week that he expects the state rate to peak above 13 percent b the end of this year and rise as high as 15 percent next year.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of finger pointing going on at the state government level.

Governor Mark Sanford said the Legislature needs to do more to create jobs by cutting taxes.

And his critics in the Legislature say Sanford needs to do a better job of recruiting new industries to the state.