West Virginia continues to feel the growing economic recession as more than half of the state's 55 counties recorded June unemployment rates of ten percent or higher.

Workforce West Virginia says Wirt County's 15.5 percent jobless rate topped the list of 30 counties with unemployment rates of ten percent or higher. Calhoun County ranked second with 15 percent.

Monongalia County continued to post the state's lowest unemployment rate, but the county's 5.8 percent level was more than one percentage point higher than May's rate of 4.6 percent.

Grant County's unemployment rate increased by almost 2.5 percentage points to 11.1 for June. The percentage has more than doubled since this time last year when it was 5.0 percent.

Hardy County also increased by half a percentage point to 9.9. This number is again more than double the June 2008 percent of 4.2

Pendleton County went up from 7.7 percent in May to 8.4 percent in June and was the only one of the local counties that did not double its rate over June 2008.

The state's unemployment rate for June was 9.4 percent, which is just below the national rate of 9.7 percent.