First, the good news: South Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.6 percent last month, the lowest in five years and a hair — 0.1 percentage points — below the national rate.
To put this into context, the last time the state’s unemployment rate fell below the national rate was in early 2001.
Additionally, according to the state Department of Employment and Workforce, 26,824 people found jobs between December 2012 and the end of 2013 — no mean feat.
It’s safe to say that a development like this has been a long time coming. South Carolina needed some encouraging news after years of wallowing at the bottom of employment lists alongside states like Michigan and Nevada.
But, as you might expect, these grand figures don’t reveal the whole picture.
One of the reasons the unemployment rate is so low is that 16,669 people have simply stopped searching for jobs since December 2012. These people are not counted when tallying up overall unemployment statistics, which makes the 6.6 percent figure slightly misleading.
Gov. Nikki Haley has wasted no time to make sure this news is attributed to her policies, which may well be justified. Her other shortcomings aside, the string of new businesses rolling into South Carolina is hard to see as a negative development.
But ultimately, giving her full credit isn’t exactly kosher either: The state’s development could simply reflect a larger economic trend.
The U.S. joblessness rate, too, has fallen dramatically, dropping under 7 percent last December. Like South Carolina, the entire nation is also seeing a sharp decline in those looking for work, too. In fact, it hasn’t been this bad nationally in 35 years.
In any case, today’s economic environment is much improved from the dire straits it was in a few years ago. USC students entering the workforce after graduation should feel more secure in their position.
As long as they keep looking for jobs, that is.