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S.C. making a slow crawl toward recovery |
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Thursday, 30 July 2009 |
By Molly Parker
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CHARLESTON -- Two S.C. economists delivered a mixed bag of news Thursday morning about the state’s economic condition, with one characterizing the expected pace out of the recession as an “unfortunately slow crawl.”
Although South Carolina has added employment opportunities in recent years, it is bleeding jobs at a faster rate and increasing in population at the same time, said Don Schunk, a research economist at Coastal Carolina University.
The state has shed about 93,000 jobs in 12 months, Schunk said, with 30,000 of those evaporating from the state’s manufacturing base. Historically, manufacturing jobs that are knocked from the rolls don’t return, he said, meaning the unemployment problem in South Carolina has roots deeper than the current recession. That’s why Schunk said he believes the state will crawl — not walk or run — toward better times.
“This is not something that will go away magically when the recession ends,” Schunk said, speaking at Thursday morning’s “Midyear Forecast” installment of the Power Breakfast Series, hosted by the Charleston Regional Business Journal and Atlantic Bank & Trust.
Doug Woodward, director of research and an economist at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, predicted that South Carolina’s economy would begin to reverse course in 2010, with urban areas of the state, including Charleston, faring much better than the rural counties, where — in some cases — one-fifth of the local work force is already without a job.
“There will be a recovery,” Woodward said. “The question is how strong that recovery will be.”
Woodward said a focus on entrepreneurship and quality of life could help South Carolina’s urban areas, and Charleston in particular, emerge from the recession sooner than smaller, more rural counties.
“That’s where entrepreneurs want to be,” Woodward said. “Charleston needs to continue — and it does — to pay attention to that.”
S.C. Treasurer Converse Chellis also said South Carolina has a lot to offer and needs to focus on selling its assets to recruit more industry. The downturn has forced the state to make painful across-the-board cuts, Chellis said, though he was optimistic about the long-term result.
“I do believe that state government will come out of the economic downturn leaner and more efficient,” he said.
Without calling him by name, Chellis downplayed Gov. Mark Sanford’s insistent call for lawmakers to pay down the debt on the state’s books. Most of the debt to which Sanford refers is related to the estimated amount the state will need to pay future pension and health care benefits for government retirees. That amount is in the tens of millions. But Chellis said there is a sound plan in place in order to meet those obligations.
“Debt is not our problem,” he said. “Unemployment is our problem.”
Published July 31, 2009 |
