South Carolina's unemployment rate up slightly in April
By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press
COLUMBIA -- More than 3,000 South Carolinians joined the ranks of the unemployed last month, and continued losses in construction jobs and escalating gas prices could paint a rocky summer economic picture, state officials said Friday.
South Carolina's April jobless rate edged up slightly, to 5.9 percent, the Employment Security Commission said. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, national unemployment dropped slightly to 5 percent, with Michigan recording the highest jobless rate at 6.9 percent.
Aiken County, which had a 4.5 percent unemployment rate in March, lowered its unemployment rate for April by 0.1 percent to 4.4 percent, coming in near the bottom of the list in a tie with Greenville County for 42nd place in the state.
Jobs in South Carolina were down by 3,300 last month -- some 2,400 of them in the construction industry. That sector continued to slide, down 7,300 from a year ago. One expert said he expects the trend will continue.
"We're going to keep seeing these construction numbers going down," said Paulo Guimaraes, a research economist at the University of South Carolina. "There are no miracles here."
New housing permits in South Carolina have dropped about 40 percent in the last year, Guimaraes said. Nationally, the Commerce Department reported that new home construction posted the biggest increase in more than two years last month, a bump experts expected to be temporary.
In its monthly report, the commission also predicted that gas prices nearing $4 a gallon could hurt the state's $16 billion tourism industry, as both South Carolina residents and visitors from other states consider staying closer to home.
But Marion Edmonds, spokesman for the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, suggested that South Carolina might end up a winner when tourists from places like Ohio, West Virginia and Tennessee visit the Palmetto State instead of going all the way to Florida.
Americans are now paying a national average of $3.787 a gallon for regular gasoline, up nearly a penny from the previous day, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. On Friday, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in South Carolina was $3.621, the fourth lowest in the nation, according to GasBuddy.com.
A spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford said the governor would keep a close eye on the summer tourism economy but, as he has in the past, he questioned the reliability of the commission's overall unemployment numbers.
"With the way our state rate has been all over the place lately, we're still not sold on the validity of the numbers," Joel Sawyer said.
Beaufort, Charleston and Lexington counties all showed the state's lowest jobless rate, at 3.9 percent. Allendale County's rate remained the highest, at 13.5 percent.
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