South Carolina’s Employment Situation    

May 2018

Unemployment rate declines to 4.0 percent, payroll employment gained 1,800

South Carolina’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased to 4.0 percent from 4.2 percent in April as unemployment fell by 5,431 people to a level of 92,498. The number of individuals working across the state declined slightly by 224 people in May to a level of 2,225,431. The state’s labor force fell by 5,655 to 2,317,929.

Since May of 2017, the labor force has grown by 9,202 people, and employment gains totaled 13,845. The level of unemployed declined by 4,643 people.

Nationally, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.8 percent from April’s rate of 3.9 percent.

Nonfarm Employment by Industry (Seasonally Adjusted1)

May 2018 seasonally adjusted, nonfarm payrolls increased by 1,800 over the month to a record level of 2,122,300.

The state’s job count rose in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities (+2,100); Education and Health Services (+1,000); Financial Activities (+700); Manufacturing (+500) and Government (+100).

Industries recording job losses during the same month were Other Services (-1,300); Leisure and Hospitality (-1,000); Professional and Business Services (-200); and Construction (-100).

Information remained flat.

From May 2017 to May 2018, South Carolina’s economy has added 38,400 seasonally adjusted, non-farm jobs.

Industries with noticeable gains were Trade, Transportation, and Utilities (+10,600); Education and Health Services (+7,100); Leisure and Hospitality (+7,000); Professional and Business Services (+5,300); Manufacturing (+3,700); Government (+3,200); Other Services (+2,500); Information (+200) and Financial Activities (+100).

Declines were reported in Construction (-1,400).

Nonfarm Employment by Industry (Not Seasonally Adjusted2)

Not seasonally adjusted, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 13,400 from April 2018 to May 2018 for a total of 2,137,100.

Industries showing notable growth were Trade, Transportation and Utilities (+4,800); Leisure and Hospitality (+3,500); Professional and Business Services (+3,300); both Construction and Financial Activities grew (+1,000); Education and Health Services and Other Services grew by (+300).

Mining and Logging remained the same.

Industries declining during the month were Government (-500); Manufacturing (-200); and Information (-100).

 

Since May 2017, not seasonally adjusted, nonfarm jobs were up 35,000 overall in South Carolina.

Industries marking strong annual gains were Trade, Transportation and Utilities (+10,400); Education and Health Services (+6,500); Leisure and Hospitality (+6,000); Professional and Business Services (+5,500), Other Services (+3,300); Manufacturing (+2,600); Government (+2,000); Mining and Logging gained (+100).

Losses were seen in Construction (-800) and Financial Activities (-600); Information held steady.

1Seasonally Adjusted: Seasonal adjustment removes the effects of events that follow a more or less regular pattern each year (i.e. tourist-related hiring and school closings in the summer). These adjustments make it easier to observe the cyclical and other nonseasonal movements in data over time.

2Not Seasonally Adjusted: Effects of regular or seasonal patterns have not been removed from these data.