COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – South Carolina’s unemployment rate continued to fall in January, but the agency is concerned that people receiving unemployment benefits are not doing enough to look for work.
The unemployment rate fell to 5.3% in January, from 5.6% in December, but well above the 2.6% rate in January 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Employment Department reported. and South Carolina Labor Force on Monday.
A worrying part of the January report in South Carolina, the number of job searches done by people receiving unemployment insurance is quite low, said Dan Ellzey, executive director of the Department of Employment and Workforce, in a statement.
The agency lifted the requirements for a number of job searches when the pandemic started in March 2020, but will start applying them again soon, said Ellzey.
“Businesses across the state would love to see more southern carolins re-engage in the workforce, earning a living wage without worrying about the expiration of federal programs and enjoying a sense of accomplishment in the work they do,” said Ellzey.
South Carolina lost 69,000 jobs last year. Hotels, restaurants and other travel and hospitality businesses continue to be hardest hit. That industry lost nearly 36,000 jobs, or 13% of its total workforce, last year, according to agency data.
Horry County, home to Myrtle Beach, continues to have the highest unemployment rate in all of South Carolina’s urban counties, 7.2% in January. The county’s unemployment rate was 4.2 percent a year earlier, the unemployment agency said.
Bamberg and Marlboro counties had the highest unemployment rates in January, at 9.5%. Lexington County had the lowest unemployment rate in the state, 4.1%.
Construction, manufacturing, information services, professional services, education and health and government lost between 3% to 4% of their total jobs from January 2020 to 2021, the agency said.
Still, South Carolina is doing better than much of the country. The national unemployment rate was 6.3% in January.
And the state recovered from the record 12.4% unemployment rate in May in the first weeks of the pandemic. At that time, the state had lost half of its hospitality jobs and the unemployment rate in Horry County was almost 23%.
Economists are watching carefully the unemployment rate and other factors that determine how much South Carolina will collect in taxes. So far, the state has not had to make budget cuts because there are jobs and people are spending money.
The January unemployment report was delayed because the federal government checked its 2020 data. The February unemployment report in South Carolina is scheduled to be released on March 26, said Ellzey.
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