South Carolina economy expected to add 263,000 jobs during the 2020s

Columbia, S.C. – The Labor Market Information (LMI) Division at the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce completed the biannual long-term 2020-2030 industry and occupational employment projections. The projections indicate that, during this 10-year period, overall employment growth will be 12.0 percent, or a gain of 263,000 new jobs produced by the state’s economy, totaling an estimated 2.46 million jobs statewide by 2030. It is projected that there will be 287,000 job openings annually during the decade due to employment growth and job turnover.

“These data provide incredibly useful information for employers, job seekers, educators, policymakers, and anyone else with an interest in our state’s labor market,” said Alan Davis, Workforce Intelligence Manager at the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce and lead author of the projections. “While no one has a crystal ball, projections like these provide needed foresight to estimate future labor demand. LMI will use the data to update our Hot Jobs product, which identifies occupations with above average wages and projected job growth, among other analyses in the months ahead.”

“Unsurprisingly, many of the industries expected to see the most employment growth from 2020 levels are those that were hardest hit by the pandemic: theaters, museums, hotels, and the like,” said Dr. Bryan Grady, LMI Director at the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce. “Across occupations, health care jobs tend to be among those growing the fastest overall, but it is the less specialized service occupations—cashiers, laborers, cooks, and others that were seen as ‘frontline workers’ during the worst of the pandemic—which will continue to have the largest numbers of job openings to fill.”

LMI produces these projections every other year under the direction of the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) within the U.S. Department of Labor. ETA sponsors a consortium of states, the Projections Management Partnership (PMP), to lead the projections process. PMP provides methodology, training, and software for the projections that each state must complete. Industry projections examine historic employment trends and utilize statistical and shift-share models to forecast future employment levels. Staffing patterns data are applied to projected industry employment to produce projected occupational employment.

“These employment projections are another tool produced by our LMI Division that can help businesses and workers better understand our turbulent job market,” said Dan Ellzey, Executive Director of the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce. “We want to make sure that everyone with a stake in making South Carolina a prosperous place to live and work has the information they need to make decisions on what careers to pursue or how to invest.”

The complete occupational projections are available at projectionscentral.org.

For more information, review the included tables or contact communications@dew.sc.gov with press inquiries or interview requests for the Labor Market Information Division.