Wetzel County had West Virginia’s highest unemployment rate for September at 11.9 percent, despite a slight improvement over August’s 12.1 percent jobless rate.

Overall, Mountain State unemployment fell from eight percent to 7.9 percent from August to September. Thirty of the state’s 55 counties, including all six in the Northern Panhandle, reported some decline in jobless claims-but a closer look at the most recent WorkForce West Virginia statistics reveals that may be due in part to some people no longer looking for work.

In Ohio, Marshall, and Wetzel counties, for example, unemployment rates declined, but so did total employment. When unemployment benefits cease and people stop actively seeking jobs, they no longer are included in the “civilian labor force,” which can skew jobless rates, according to WorkForce data analyst Joe Jarvis.

Wetzel County Commissioner Scott Lemley said he finds news of his county’s dubious distinction “very discouraging.”

That part of the state is a hotbed of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling activity, and Lemley hopes the bevy of companies looking to cash in on the boom will begin hiring more local labor to extract the resource from the ground.

“That’s a very controversial issue going on,” Lemley said, citing television ads and yard signs urging drillers to hire locally. “I’d hope any industry involved with our natural resources would help reduce our unemployment rate.”

The industry has drawn some criticism for using out-of-state labor, but Lemley acknowledged there’s only so much government can do about it.

“We can’t control what private industry does. They have their own employment guidelines,” he said.

Lemley said a representative of Dallas, Texas-based Caiman Energy told commissioners at a recent meeting they are a union-based company and would be hiring local workers to construct a natural gas pipeline through Wetzel County. He also said natural gas processing facilities, such as a fractionation plant Dominion Transmission plans to build next to PPG Industries’ Natrium plant in Marshall County, could help, adding 40-50 jobs each.

And despite news of locally produced natural gas being shipped via pipeline to Louisiana and Canada, Lemley said the prospect of an ethane cracker provides a glimmer of hope.

Ethane is produced when processing plants strip the natural gas liquids found in “wet” gas away from the methane natural gas. The ethane then can be “cracked” to form ethylene, the basis of plastic.

Overall, the Northern Panhandle saw a net growth of 100 jobs from August to September. Ohio County’s unemployment rate went from 7.4 percent 7.2 percent, though total employment numbers indicate the county lost 80 jobs.

Hancock County reduced its jobless rate from 11.1 percent to 10.5 percent, while Brooke County saw a half-percent improvement to 9 percent.

Although it saw a similar half-percent decline in its unemployment rate to 8.4 percent, Marshall County still lost 50 jobs. And Tyler went from 10.7 percent to 10.3 percent.

The state gained 2,700 service-providing jobs versus only 200 goods-producing jobs.