For the first time in four months, COVID-19 isn’t the likely culprit for SC job losses.
In recent months, business closures linked to COVID-19 have been the major cause for the dramatic rise in South Carolina job losses.
Now a state expert says there’s a new cause -- the July Fourth holiday.
“The jump in numbers may be surprising, but it does track with an annual trend our agency sees each year around the Fourth of July holiday,” said Dan Ellzey, executive director with the state department of employment and workforce. “The week following the Fourth of July has historically recorded a higher number of initial claims as it represents layoffs and closings for the holiday week.”
South Carolina began weekly releases of unemployment claims in mid-March. For the first time since early June, and only the second time since the first week of April, York, Lancaster and Chester counties saw an increase in unemployment claims.
York County had 570 claims for the week ending July 11. Lancaster County had 228, and Chester County had 130.
The 928 tri-county claims in the most recent week bring their total since mid-March to 35,336. York County has 23,598 claims in that span, compared to 7,693 in Lancaster County and 4,045 in Chester County.
“While this year’s initial claims total is significantly higher in volume, the percentage increase (20.3%) is significantly lower than 2018 (51%) and 2019 (79%),” Ellzey said of July 4 week claim filing. “While an upward trend is not something we ever want to see, we do believe this trend is isolated and isn’t solely pinpointed to impacts from COVID-19.”
Statewide there were 19,329 unemployment claims the most recent week, up 3,267 from the week prior. Since mid-March the total is 671,079. More than $3.15 billion in state and federal benefits have been paid to South Carolina residents.
In a statement with the weekly unemployment data release Thursday morning, Ellzey said July 4 job loss claim increases date back several years.
“When an individual files for unemployment insurance, they are filing for layoff or lack of work for the prior week,” he said. “What we see is a trend, mainly due to businesses, often in the manufacturing sector, closing operations for a week or two around this summer holiday each year.”
Statewide unemployment skyrocketed March 21. That week it jumped to more than 15 times what it previously had been, all due to social distancing brought on by coronavirus. The week of April 11 unemployment peaked at 87,686 claims. Since then claim totals have dropped statewide for 11 out of 13 weeks.
Claims in the most recent week still are almost 10 times what they were the week before the coronavirus surge started.
