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Richland County sees 1,554 unemployment claims filed in week

Staff Report //July 2, 2020//

Richland County sees 1,554 unemployment claims filed in week

Staff Report //July 2, 2020//

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More than 1,550 initial unemployment claims were filed in Richland County for the week ending June 27 as total claims filed in South Carolina in the last 15 weeks climbed to 635,688.

For the week ending June 27, 16,959 people filed claims, including 1,554 in Richland County. That represented a decrease of 139 claims from the previous week, according to S.C. Department of Unemployment and Workforce data.

The agency said it has paid more than $2.7 billion in a combination of state and federal unemployment benefits since mid-March.

“While the number of people seeking first time unemployment assistance fell, the state is not seeing the movement week-over-week for which we hoped,” Dan Ellzey, DEW executive director, said in a news release. “There are still a lot of questions and unknowns as to what the future will hold, how long this economic stall will go on and what the true magnitude of the impact will truly be. However, what we know is when the virus initially caused the economic shut down in March, job cuts were highly concentrated in the restaurant, travel, hospitality and retail industries.

“While those industries are still feeling the residual impact, the effect is continuing to spread to other sectors like professional services, manufacturing and health care as sustained weeks of hardship drag on.”

Greenville County saw 1,557 claims filed for the week ending June 27, while Charleston County had 1,141. Spartanburg County had 974 and Lexington County 858.

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