While campaigning for governor, Tom Corbett promised great strides in job creation, thus lowering the state’s unemployment rate.

Corbett has kept jobs a focal point of his work amid the ongoing battle of reining in state spending; consider his administration’s efforts on behalf of the proposed Beaver County chemical-processing “cracker” plant. But he is dealing with unemployment trends that not even his best intentions can control.

For July, the unemployment rate in the state jumped to 7.9 percent from 7.6 percent in June — the biggest monthly increase since 2009.

July also marked the second- straight month that the state rate has increased.

The current situation reflects a major turnaround from May, when the state’s jobless rate was at a three-year low of 7.4 percent, having dipped from the recessionary peak of 8.7 percent in 2010.

It’s also significant that the gap between the higher national unemployment rate — 8.3 percent in July — and the state rate is smaller than it has been since 2008, indicating that the Keystone State’s economic fortunes are a cause for deeper concern.

Butler County’s July jobless rate, at 6.7 percent in July from 6.5 percent in June, is well below the state and national rates. But it too defies the thinking that the growing Marcellus shale gas-drilling industry would help to significantly reduce joblessness here and across the state as well.

Perhaps the Marcellus-related job creation has slowed because of the lower price of natural gas at this time. However, the fact that many Marcellus jobs are being filled by people from out of state has kept out of work many Pennsylvania residents who deserve an opportunity to land such jobs.

In fact, overall, hiring in Pennnsylvania has stagnated since October, having risen by just 5,000 non-farm jobs since then.

“I think we’ll still keep seeing job growth in the coming months; it’ll be just weak growth,” said Mark Price, a labor economist with the Harrisburg-based Keystone Research Center.

If his prediction holds true, it means that hiring will not keep pace with the number of people entering the job market — hurting future months’ employment statistics.

For Corbett then, the hopes for robust jobs numbers, no matter how hard he’s working toward that objective, will have to wait.

Meanwhile, the negative trend that’s evolving could become a major political issue — cast by Democrats as a promise broken — when Corbett presumably will be campaigning for re-election in two years.

Jobless statistics often tend to bounce around, going up a little or down a little. But recording the biggest unemployment jump in three years is an eye-opening development.

No doubt Corbett is concerned, and so should people across the state, if for no other reason than higher umemployment will hurt Corbett’s efforts to reverse the commonwealth’s burgeoning fiscal problems. Economic growth is critical to healthier budgets, across the state and nation.

The governor needs some retooling of his more-jobs initiatives, including training more Pennsylvanians for work in the Marcellus fields.