SC unemployment: COVID-19 put half-million out of work, but new jobless claims are down

Anna B. Mitchell
Greenville News

A weekly jobless report shows unemployment claims are down for the fifth week in a row even as the total number of South Carolina workers seeking unemployment benefits has climbed above 500,000 since the COVID-19 pandemic started to force business closures nine weeks ago.

The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce released the figures Thursday morning. The number of unemployed workers in the state before the pandemic was about 62,000, according to an April jobs report.

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Agency spokesperson Heather Biance said in a release that 29,446 people filed their first claims for unemployment insurance during the week that ended May 16: 

  • This is a decrease of 3,067 initial claims from the week prior.
  • This is the fifth consecutive week of decreases in initial jobless claims.
  • In the last nine weeks, the total number of initial claims has risen to 515,595 in South Carolina.
  • The agency has paid more than $1.35 billion in a combination of state UI benefits and federal CARES Act programs 
  • Call center hours are from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. during weekdays and 8 a.m. – noon this Saturday. Hours were adjusted to allow more staff to be available during peak call times.

In the Greenville area, new jobless claims also went down last week. In Greenville County, it was 2,845, down from 3,494 the week before. In Anderson, that number was 1,252, down from 1,284. In Pickens, it was 602, down from 742, and in Spartanburg it was 2,166, down from 2,546.

Stacy Tazz, out of work for five weeks from a restaurant in Columbia, chants "Open our county, open our state" with fellow demonstrators during the Drive To Thrive SC protest at the State House in downtown Columbia Friday, April 24, 2020.

Still, total payouts to the unemployed in South Carolina are on the rise, figures provided to The Greenville News show. This means that while new claims are down, more South Carolinians overall remain unemployed and are continuing to collect benefits. 

SCDEW paid out roughly $3 million in state unemployment benefits weekly before the pandemic hit. This money comes out of the state's unemployment insurance trust fund. Last week, payments totaled $66 million.

At that rate, the unemployment trust fund would be depleted by the end of summer. 

U.S. Treasury figures through April 16, the most recent date for which data is available, shows South Carolina's unemployment trust fund at $1.04 billion. 

Source: South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce; U.S. Treasury Department

Early Friday, the agency will release its monthly employment report that for the first time will show the full impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the state's workforce, industry by industry and county by county. 

Typically released the third week of every month, the report from the Department of Employment and Workforce provides localized results of a nationwide survey of 60,000 households and 40,000 employers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Anna B. Mitchell covers growth and local government in Greenville County. You can follow her on Twitter @AnnaBard2U and on Facebook.