In an odd month, when two monthly job reports are released, South Carolina reported a loss of 12,900 jobs in January, but adds interest to the February report, which will be released in about 10 days.
The mediocre report countered recent trends, according to Laura Ullrich, a regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, based in Charlotte, who provided an analysis of the US Department of Labor’s official Palmetto State employment report on a conference call on Monday with various media.
During the second half of 2020, South Carolina was clearly outpacing the US economy in job gains and recovery from the pandemic-induced recession; however, the scenario was reversed in January with the country at the top.
While the United States created 166,000 jobs during the first month of 2021, South Carolina lost 12,900 jobs, according to the data. Numerous business sectors in the state suffered significant impacts with losses in January, including leisure and hospitality (-3,800), construction (-3,200), government (-3,200), professional and business services (-2,100) and manufacturing (-1,000). These totals have already been “seasonally adjusted,” said Ullrich, to account for these variations.
Only two sectors created jobs in the month – commerce, transport and public services, as well as private education and private health – and these gains were minimal (300 jobs each), according to the report.
Ullrich said she was surprised by the decrease in construction, noting that there appears to be a lot of work in progress in the state.
“This is the odd month that we receive two job reports in one month,” she said, “so we’ll get the February data [on March 26], and I’ll be interested to see what that report shows in that regard. “
Still, for perspective, in the past 12 months since January 2020, total jobs in the U.S. have fallen 6.3%, while jobs in South Carolina have dropped 4.3%, or 94,300 in total.
“Even though this month’s report was a little negative,” said Ullrich, “I think it is important to note that the state still continued to show some relative strength in overall job losses during the COVID-19 period compared to the country as a whole. . “
In a separate research report, South Carolina’s unemployment rate decreased from 5.6% in December 2020 to 5.3% in January.
Locally, Sumter County’s unemployment rate was 6.1%. Clarendon County was 6.6% and Lee had the highest unemployment rate in the area, 7%.
The national monthly rate was 6.3%. A broader measure of unemployment in the US to include individuals marginally linked to the workforce, in addition to people who work only part-time for economic reasons, was 11.1%.