A summary is below. More details are available on our State Employment Page.

January 22, 2019

Summary

• South Carolina added 10,800 jobs and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.3 percent in December according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

• Over the past twelve months, South Carolina added 41,200 jobs and the unemployment rate fell by 0.9 percentage point from 4.2 percent.

• In December, South Carolina's private sector added 10,600 jobs and over the past twelve months, it created 38,200 jobs.

• The number of unemployed South Carolinians rose by 377 in December, and over the past year, 21,695 South Carolinians found jobs.

• South Carolina’s labor force participation rate increased to 57.4 percent from 57.3 percent in December.  Since last year, the labor force participation rate fell 0.9 percentage point.

• The national unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 3.9 percent in December.  State employment and unemployment data for January is scheduled for release on March 11, 2019.  The national employment situation report for January will be released on Friday, February 1, 2019.