Why has S.C. lost so many jobs this Recession? (Columbia: transplants, sales)

[TootsieWootsie]

A friend pointed out to me last night that S.C. has zoomed up to the #2 State regarding losing jobs during this Recession. So, I am wondering: why S.C.? Anyone know?

[Ceezer]

Maybe because employment rate was already low? If 1000 people lose their jobs in SC and 1000 people lose their jobs in, say, NC, then the percentage of jobs lost is going to be higher for SC.

I don't know if that's the reason. I'm just tossing it out as a potential contributing factor.

[rubber_factory]

I knew that SC had high unemployment, about #2 nationally, but I have not seen statistics that show SC is losing a lot of jobs. I am skeptical, I think SC's unemployment is more a product of increased population than decreased jobs.

Can you post a source for this claim?

[Buckeye in SC]

Originally Posted by TootsieWootsie

A friend pointed out to me last night that S.C. has zoomed up to the #2 State regarding losing jobs during this Recession. So, I am wondering: why S.C.? Anyone know?

There's a lot to it, I'll offer up some of my thoughts as to why, not saying they are all 100% accurate, but feel they have a lot to do w/it:

First off, a lot of the coastal areas are driven by tourism, in particular Myrtle Beach & Hilton Head, so as the economy sags and more people not only in SC are unemployed, but those from other states who vacation there, those areas take a hit, meaning they need less workers.

The other major coastal area is Charleston, and one of if not it's biggest economic factor is it's ports. I believe it's the 3rd or 4th largest port city on the east coast. So in a time where the global economy in general is down, shipping goods in and out of the ports are down as well, again, causing lay-offs in that sector.

As for the other areas, the SC side of the Charlotte metro i.e. Rock Hill, Ft. Mill, York, Chester, Lancaster have been hurt by Charlotte's unemployment rate doubling over the last year due to it being the so-called financial capital of the south and seeing thousands of jobs lost due to Wachovia being bought out by Wells Fargo and Bank of America really struggling as well.

Columbia and the upstate areas of Greenville-Spartanburg if you look at their unemployment % rise, it's pretty much in-line w/the national average as I think both are at or near the current national rate of 8.9%.

As for the rural areas, they've been struggling for years as the textile industry continues to be shipped overseas, and have been hurt even more in the current recession, a couple of those counties the unemployment rate is around 20%, but even before the recession, they were in the low teens/double digits.

The Carolinas have seen large migrations of people move here over the last few decades (including myself) from the north/midwest areas of the US. For instance: SC's population in 1990 was around 3.5 million, today it's close to 4.5 million - over 25% growth. Adding a million people in less than 20 years means the state needed to create 300-500 thousand new jobs just to keep up w/the increase considering that you could probably conservatively estimate that half that increase is children or older people who are retiring here for the climate. Compare that to Indiana, Michigan or Ohio going back 20-30 years, those states have seen much slower growth rates.

Finally, as we are seeing play out right now by are wonderful state government (I say that sarcastically), state-govt. jobs are driven a lot by sales tax revenue as that is a major revenue producer to fund those jobs, well as you can imagine, sales tax collections are down significantly due to people not buying as much at stores and what not, so we've lost a lot of state jobs due to that.

I'm sure there is a lot more to it than that, but that is at least what I've observed as to why we are 3rd (I believe Michigan and now Oregon has passed us) in the nation currently in unemployment.

[TootsieWootsie]

Good information! I get all that, and it surely answers the question well! Thanks so much for taking the time for the thoughtful and informative answer!!!

[Frankie117]

Short and simple, many SC industries are of the light industrial nature, mostly tied to the auto industry. Tourism also plays a role, as does the fact that many SC industries are also consumer based (autos included). When the economy tanks, SC is more vulnerable than other states. The aftershock of thousands of transplants moving without jobs and now stuck with nothing isn't helping the statistics either..