COLOMBIA, SC – The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce reported an increase last week in new claims for unemployment insurance over the previous week.
The agency received 3,066 complaints during the week ended on Saturday, an increase of more than 300 from the week ended on March 13.
Horry County reported the highest number of new complaints, with 367.
Last week, South Carolina paid $ 71.5 million in state and federal benefits.
Since the pandemic began in mid-March 2020, the state has paid a total of more than $ 5.6 billion.
The national image
Nationally, the number of people seeking unemployment insurance fell dramatically last week to 684,000, the lowest number since the pandemic broke out a year ago and a sign that the economy is improving.
Thursday’s Department of Labor report showed that unemployment insurance claims fell from 781,000 in the previous week. It is the first time that weekly claims for unemployment benefits have fallen to less than 700,000 since mid-March last year. Before the pandemic devastated the economy, applications had never reached that level.
The number of people seeking benefits under a federal program for self-employed and contract workers has also dropped to 241,000 from 284,000 a week earlier. In all, the number of candidates has dropped to less than 1 million for the first time since the pandemic.
Economists are becoming more optimistic that the rate of layoffs, which has been chronically high for an entire year, is finally slowing.
“While the level of complaints remains high,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, an economist at Oxford Economics, “we expect them to continue to decline as the recovery gains momentum.”
From reports by WCSC and The Associated Press