Horry’s workforce up, unemployment down in March

Food Lion may have to act quickly if it decides that 18-year-old Keontrail Wilson of Longs is one of the people they want to hire from the job fair the grocer held Tuesday at the Hampton Inn at Broadway at the Beach.

Wilson, a strapping young man who looks like he’d be perfect stocking shelves, said after his interview with a store manager that he thinks it could take Food Lion a couple of weeks to get back to him.

But he plans to keep looking in the interim. And he said the prospects are better for job hunters than they have been in years.

Indeed, Horry County’s unemployment rate fell 1.5 points to 7.7 percent in March, according to information released Tuesday by the state Department of Employment and Workforce, even as the county’s overall labor force grew by 1,800 people.

The improvement came after two months in which the area’s jobless rate ballooned above 9 percent following the loss of Christmas season retail jobs, and the surge suggested that the area’s tourism employers may be gearing up for the season sooner than normal.

DEW reported that 6,900 jobs were created statewide in March in the leisure and hospitality sector, by far the largest area of job growth across the state. The second highest growth sector was professional and business services, which added 1,900 jobs in March.

Brad Dean, CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, said he was surprised by the strength of the leisure and hospitality hiring.

“That’s a bigger jump than anyone forecast,” he said.

He said that the number is indicative that businesspeople in the tourism industry feel better about the economy in general combined perhaps with a strong demand for rooms between Easter and Memorial Day, which usually sees a dip in tourism.

The industry as a whole is expected to grow this year, Dean said, but the early hiring could suggest that tourism businesses are beginning to look at a six-month to nine-month tourism season rather than the three months it used to be.

Tourism businesses are sensitive to having the right number of employees to serve customers, and the early hiring also shows at least a hope for a long and prosperous season, he said.

“What we’ve been hearing,” Dean said, “is that businesses are saying we’re hiring more (people) earlier and getting them trained for the season.”

The Food Lion job fair was one of a number in the area recently as grocers and tourism-related businesses are seeking to stock the employee cupboard to service the bulk of the area’s 16 million annual visitors.

Other recent job fairs have been held by Wal-Mart, Bi Lo, Barefoot Landing, Myrtle Waves and others.

Barbara Craig, manager of Food Lion’s Forestbrook store, said she was interviewing primarily for stores nearer the crowds of tourists, but by 11 a.m., she had found one person that she’ll be interviewing at her store on Wednesday.

“It seems we get a lot of people at these fairs who are looking for part-time work,” Craig said, adding that applicants ran the gamut from students to retirees.

The DEW statistics showed that Horry County’s workforce grew to 132,848 in March, up from 131,064 in February. More than 10,000 were unemployed during the month, according to DEW, about 1,000 more than in March 2014 when the jobless rate was 7.5 percent with a workforce that was about 3,000 fewer than this March.

The workforce in Georgetown County grew by about 130 people in March, and at 26,688 people was just over 100 more than in the same month last year.

Georgetown County recorded an 8.3 percent jobless rate in March, a drop of 1.2 points from February.

The statewide unemployment rate rose 0.1 points to 6.7 percent in March. But the statewide rate is seasonally adjusted to smooth out the peaks and valleys caused by seasonal hiring.

There is no seasonal rate computed for each county.

Wilson said he hasn’t worked for four months to five months. His last job was as a cook at Hardee’s, a job he left because he wasn’t getting enough hours.

Rob Salvino, an economist at Coastal Carolina University, said the March numbers show that the area’s economy and job possibilities are continuing to expand.

He wasn’t sure if the state’s addition of 6,900 jobs in leisure and hospitality would later be adjusted downward. But if they hold through any revisions, it would be a significant jump for the sector’s hiring this time of year.

He said that he believed that 4,000 additional leisure and hospitality jobs would have been more normal in March.

He agreed that job seekers such as Wilson would have more choices in the current market than they might have had a year ago.

But he wasn’t sure Food Lion would be bereft if it liked Wilson but found he’d gone elsewhere when the company contacted him for a job.

“We know there are a lot more people looking for work,” Salvino said, “so that’ll work in Food Lion’s behalf.”

This story was originally published April 21, 2015 at 10:52 AM with the headline "Horry’s workforce up, unemployment down in March."