COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina’s unemployment rate continued to drop in January, but the agency is worried people receiving jobless benefits aren’t doing enough to look for work.
The jobless rate dropped to 5.3% in January, down from 5.6% in December, but well above the 2.6% rate in January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic started, the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce reported Monday.
One troubling part of January’s report in South Carolina is the number of job searches made by people collecting unemployment benefits is quite low, Department of Employment and Workforce Executive Director Dan Ellzey said in a statement.
The agency suspended requirements for a certain number of job searches when the pandemic started in March 2020, but will begin to enforce them again soon, Ellzey said.
“Businesses around the state would love to see more South Carolinians reengaging in the workforce, earning a livable wage without worry of federal programs expiring and enjoying a sense of fulfilment in the work they do,” Ellzey said.
South Carolina has lost 69,000 jobs in the past year. Hotels, restaurants and other travel and hospitality businesses continue to be hardest hit. That industry has lost nearly 36,000 jobs, or 13% of its total workforce, in the past year, according to the agency’s data.
Horry County, home to Myrtle Beach, continues to have the highest unemployment of any of South Carolina’s urban counties at 7.2% in January. The county’s unemployment rate was 4.2% a year before, the jobless agency said.
Bamberg and Marlboro counties had the highest unemployment rates in January at 9.5%. Lexington County had the state’s lowest jobless rate at 4.1%.
Construction, manufacturing, information services, professional services, education and health and government all lost between 3% to 4% of their total jobs from January 2020 to 2021, the agency said.
Still, South Carolina is fairing better than much of the country. The national unemployment rate was 6.3% in January.
And the state has rebounded from the record 12.4% unemployment rate in May in the first weeks of the pandemic. At that point, the state had lost half of its hospitality jobs and the unemployment rate in Horry County was nearly 23%.
Economists are carefully watching the unemployment rate and other factors as they determine how much South Carolina will collect in taxes. So far the state hasn’t had to make budget cuts because there are jobs and people are spending money.
The January unemployment report was delayed as the federal government checked its 2020 data. The February jobless report in South Carolina is scheduled to be released on March 26, Ellzey said.
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