Employment and Workforce Executive Director William Floyd’s Statement

January 2024 Employment Situation

Columbia, S.C. – “The momentum of 2023 continues in South Carolina with the labor force increasing in January and the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate both holding steady at 3.0% and 57.2% respectively,” said S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce (DEW) Executive Director William Floyd.

“DEW started the year strong with the agency’s Regional Workforce Advisors actively engaging throughout the state, coordinating school-to-work events, and communicating to young people, their parents, and educators the wide range of workforce opportunities offered by our thriving economy. Coupled with the great work of the Be Pro Be Proud initiative, which introduces the state’s middle and high school students to skilled careers and the exploration of those career pathways, these are two terrific examples of impactful ways being used to develop our future workforce,” said Floyd.

“We are also excited to have launched this year, DEW’s SC@Work: Rural Connections initiative, which will actively engage with jobseekers in rural communities and directly connect them with employers throughout our state, using lessons learned during phase one of the program, the SC@Work: Road Trips of 2023,” continued Floyd.

“From a strategic standpoint, our agency has been busy engaging with employers, associations, third party administrators, and industry groups to help guide them through the new Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code process. This new data, which is entered into the same portal where the employer account information is kept, will help the state better understand the composition of our current workforce and anticipate future workforce needs in our state,” stated Floyd.

“We look forward to every opportunity to work with jobseekers and employers to help continue building South Carolina’s workforce,” concluded Floyd.

As a reminder, in February of each year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts its annual revision of national estimates from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) monthly survey. For that reason, numbers for January 2024 will be released on March 11 and numbers for February 2024 will be released on March 22. Because the release of monthly employment numbers are estimates that are captured to provide immediate information and trends of the employment status, the benchmarking period allows BLS to revise or adjust these estimates. Some numbers may be adjusted, as they are each year, as BLS has more time to vet the data.