COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina's jobless rate jumped sharply to 7.1 percent in October, but experts say that is not necessarily bad news.

The state actually created 3,700 jobs during October, the third month in a row South Carolina had more jobs, according to economic figures.

"There's simply more people looking for a job who were not in the labor force before," University of South Carolina economist Don Schunk said Friday.

In other words, people who gave up on finding work over the past few years when the economy was doing worse have decided things have improved enough to start looking for a job again, Schunk said.

The joblessness rate jumped from 6.4 percent in September to 7.1 percent in October - the highest rate since March 1994 when unemployment was at 7.2 percent, the Employment Security Commission said Friday.

"Unemployment may have jumped quite a bit, but I'm feeling better about the state economy now than I did last month," Schunk said.

Commission director Roosevelt "Ted" Halley also expects this to be just a short-term blip.

"As retailers accelerate their hiring for the holiday season and the overall economy continues to improve, many of these job seekers should be able to find that job opportunities will increase," Halley said.

The higher numbers might also indicate people trying to get a jump on finding holiday season jobs, Halley said.

Marlboro County had the highest jobless rate in October, at 19.4 percent, followed by Marion County at 17.8 percent.

Beaufort County had the lowest rate at 3.3 percent, followed by Lexington County at 3.4 percent. The county jobless figures are not adjusted for seasonal factors.

"Today's news of a sharp rise in South Carolina's unemployment rate is a reminder that Carolina families continue to suffer because of this president's economic policies, especially for manufacturing and textile jobs," said Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.

Gov. Mark Sanford said the uptick in unemployment shows why the state needs his economic plan.

Sanford has proposed raising the tax on cigarettes from 7 cents per pack to 68 cents a pack, adding the 5 percent sales tax to the cost of lottery tickets, and cutting state income tax rates from 7 percent to 5.9 percent.

"If there were any doubt job-creating tax reform is long-overdue in South Carolina, these numbers should go a long way toward continuing to erase it," Sanford said Friday in a statement.