SENECA — Rising unemployment numbers in Oconee and Pickens counties indicate there will be no short-term relief from the more than yearlong economic recession.

The latest jobless report released Friday shows Oconee with an unemployment rate of 14.5 percent in May, or up 0.6 percent from the previous month.

The news was not good in Pickens County either as its jobless rate spiked to 10.2 percent, an increase of 0.7 percent from April.

In Oconee, the ranks of the unemployed swelled to 4,541 workers or 203 more than the previous month. The number of workers collecting unemployment in Pickens County increased by almost 500 workers to 6,232.

The increased unemployment in both counties comes after each saw a drop in its jobless rate in April.

Historically, unemployment has never been higher in both counties. During the recession of the early 1990s, Oconee’s jobless rate reached 11.6 percent and Pickens’ was 9.4 percent.

Don Schunk, research economist at Coastal Carolina University, said Friday that the situation is probably worse than the official numbers reflect because there are people who have given up looking for jobs.

Schunk predicts that statewide unemployment in 2010 will average 15 percent, which balloons to almost 20 percent when people who have stopped job searching are factored in.

In the 10-county Upstate region, only Union (21.4 percent), Cherokee (17.3 percent) and Abbeville (15.1 percent) had a higher unemployment rate than Oconee.

Pickens County, on the other hand, tied with Greenville for the lowest jobless rate in the Upstate.