The southern Appalachians, including 37 Georgia counties, have been hit harder by the recession than the rest of the region, which stretches from southern New York to northern Mississippi, according to an economist for the Appalachian Regional Commission.

"The (economic) picture’s pretty bad," economist David Carrier said Thursday. "It’s getting worse."

Carrier delivered the news to the Appalachian Regional Commission in a meeting Thursday at North Georgia College & State University.

His presentation came on the same day Georgia’s Department of Labor released statistics showing that Gainesville’s unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent last month.

Carrier told the commission that the labor force in the southern end of the region grew at the same rate as other regions in the United States between 2000 and 2008. But now, the unemployment rate in Southern Appalachia is higher than the national average.

"You can see the trends completely reversed," he said.

While central Appalachia has the highest unemployment rate, southern Appalachia "contracted a lot more severely in the recession" than the rest of the region, Carrier said.

Maps Carrier presented to the commission showed that the labor force in areas such as Hall County, which grew rapidly in the first eight years of the decade, contracted more severely in the last year than other areas that previously had slower growth.

Areas of North Georgia and Alabama are among the hardest hit by the current recession, he said.

"That trend is continuing," he said.

Carrier said the best way for the region to wade through the recession would be to improve the region’s infrastructure and energy productivity.

James McCleskey, who represents North Carolina on the commission, said the commission should look at "green" jobs as a "way out and a way forward," and seek grants from the Economic Development Administration to kick-start the development of "green" industry in the region.

"I think the case (for developing ‘green’ jobs) is strong, based on the dismal science we just had presented to us," McCleskey said.