S.C. loses over 24,000 factory jobs
By ANDREW SHAIN
COLUMBIA -- South Carolina lost more manufacturing jobs over the past year than at any time since 1994, according to a survey released Monday by a private firm.
The state lost 24,393 manufacturing jobs in 2008-09 after losing 5,989 the year before, according to the 2010 South Carolina Manufacturers Register, an industrial directory published by Manufacturers' News Inc.
AP/FILE
South Carolina's textile industry has been hardest hit by the cutbacks in manufacturing jobs.
South Carolina's employment numbers, which are tracked each August to August, fell the most year-over-year since Manufacturers' News started collecting the data 15 years ago.
Manufacturing employment in South Carolina fell by 8.2 percent last year to 271,676.
The Charleston area lost more than 7,900 jobs, the publication found.
The slowdown in retail and home sales has hit two of South Carolina's core industries hard -- textiles and wood/furniture/building products, Manufacturers' News president Tom Dubin said.
The directory's statistics mimic those from the S.C. Employment Security Commission, which show that manufacturing accounts for the biggest job losses year-over-year despite being the state's third-largest employer behind government and trade/transportation/ utilities.
The state had 28,300 fewer manufacturing jobs in August than a year earlier, commission data show.
The state has lost 113,557 manufacturing jobs since peaking in 1997, but the number of manufacturers has remained nearly the same -- 5,170 in 1998 vs. 5,169 this year, according to Manufacturers' News.
The average size of a man-ufacturer has shrunk as automation has taken off, Dubin said.
"What it used to take three to five people on the line to do, now can take one engineer telling a machine what to do," he said.
The state Department of Commerce said it's working to win more business, having announcements in recent weeks that could lead to more than 1,000 new manufacturing jobs.
"The bottom line is despite the current economic environment, South Carolina continues to receive national recognitions for its business-friendly climate and is continuing to attract new jobs and investments," the department said in a statement.
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