UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE COULD BE WORSE

South Carolina may currently have the fourth highest unemployment in the country, but new numbers from the Wall Street Journal show that the Palmetto State could recover faster than many other states.

The state might return to pre-recession levels for jobs by 2012, according to data compiled by IHS Global Insight, an international economic and financial analysis firm.

In the spring of 2007, South Carolina’s unemployment rate was as low as 5 percent. Last month, that same number hit 12.1 percent.

The return to the jobless numbers of two years ago may seem far away, but it could be worse.

In the South, only Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas are expected to recover as soon as or sooner than South Carolina.

“The District of Columbia and Texas have been somewhat insulated from the worst of this recession, thanks to heavy concentrations in federal government and energy, along with their lack of a major housing bubble,” IHS economists wrote in a research note. “Those two will lead the recovery and gain back their lost jobs the quickest.”

In the Northeast and Midwest, the picture is much more bleak.

Most states in those two regions will not reach pre-recession unemployment numbers until 2013 or later. And the five states that were predicted to recover until after 2015 — Connecticut, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Rhode Island — are located there.