South Carolina Jobs Report: May 2025

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While South Carolina lawmakers included unconstitutional pay raises for themselves in yet another bloated version of their results-challenged state budget, the income-generating potential of the people they purportedly represent continued to lag.

For the third straight month, labor participation in the Palmetto State held at an abysmally low 57.5% in May – just 0.2% above its record low reading of 57.3%, recorded between August and October of 2022.

This atrocious figure was the third-worst labor participation number in the entire country – ahead of only Mississippi (56.2%) and West Virginia (54.3%). Nationally, labor participation slid by 0.2% last month to 62.4%.

For the visually inclined among you, our research director Jenn Wood has prepared this chart showing the long-term trend lines…

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Despite this key indicator hovering just above its all-time low, South Carolina workforce bureaucrats wasted no time patting themselves on the back for the state’s performance.

“South Carolina enters the summer tourism season with another strong jobs report for the month of May,” S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce (SCDEW) executive director William Floyd noted in a statement. “Unemployment ticked down by a tenth of one percent to 4.1% and businesses added 5,400 jobs month-over-month. The number of unemployed South Carolinians dropped by more than 750 individuals while the labor force increased by nearly 4,400.”

Floyd and S.C. governor Henry McMaster repeatedly focus on the state’s unemployment rate, but as FITSNews has repeatedly pointed out labor participation is the most accurate indicator of a state’s true employment health. Labor participation tracks the percentage of a state’s population that is either gainfully employed or actively searching for work. Unlike the widely watched unemployment rate –  which tracks a segment of workers within the labor force – labor participation tracks the size of the workforce itself.

That makes it a much better indicator of sustained job creation – or in South Carolina’s case, the lack thereof.

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Workforce bureaucrats have historically sought to blame the Palmetto State’s anemic workforce on its aging population.

 “Between 1994 and 2019, the share of our state’s population age 65 or older nearly doubled,” agency economist Erica Von Nessen stated in a 2022 report. “This fact alone explains most of the decline in South Carolina’s labor force participation rate in that time.”

The problem with this argument? All but one of the twelve states with larger senior populations than South Carolina also have higher labor participation rates – the lone exception being West Virginia.

While “Republicans” love to tout their pro-business bona fides, labor participation in South Carolina began sliding from its peak of 68.5% right around the time the GOP takeover of state government began in the mid-1990s. It has not eclipsed the key 60% demarcation line since May 2012, former governor Nikki Haley’s second full year in office.

While politicians like McMaster and Haley – and their apologists in the mainstream media – continue pumping sunshine on South Carolina’s employment situation, count on FITSNews to keep reporting on the numbers that matter.

And to hold those responsible for them accountable…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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