Job frustration: No clear end

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South Carolina has lost 16,600 manufacturing jobs over the past year. Even worse, most of those jobs will probably not return. While the nation's economy is showing encouraging growth, our state's economy is being dragged down by our rapid loss of manufacturing jobs.

Creating new jobs that give displaced workers opportunities with parity in pay and benefits is now this state's biggest economic challenge.

Unlike in past years, where layoffs were tied mostly to cyclical business trends, the loss of manufacturing jobs today is heavily attributable to globalization and efficiency. Jobs have either moved overseas, been eliminated because of foreign competition or are no longer required because more efficient factories require fewer workers.

The disconnect between our state's condition and the momentum in the national economy is starkly clear. Revised third-quarter growth numbers released Tuesday show the national economy grew an astounding 8.2 percent, the highest growth in nearly a decade. But this means little in South Carolina when state jobless figures for October jumped to 7.1 percent, the nation's third-highest increase.

In the same week, the state Department of Social Services reported a 62 percent increase in the Food Stamp program from September 2001 to September 2003.

And job growth projections are not encouraging. The state Employment Security Commission reports that the fastest-growing fields in the state are nursing and teaching. Appropriately, the state is aggressively offering retraining to prepare more workers for those fields.

But those who are successfully retrained and placed are likely to be a small minority of displaced workers. Statewide, the most in-demand job that doesn't require a college degree — the newly jobless are unlikely to hold a degree — is security guard, which typically pays between $6.67 and $8.70 per hour. In Greenville, the state ESC projects the highest job growth is in retail sales, which pays an hourly rate between $6.94 and $11.16.

Gov. Mark Sanford wants to cut the state's income tax rate by 15 percent, a cornerstone of his jobs and economic growth plan that focuses mainly on small businesses. The governor's expanded plan includes more potentially helpful initiatives. But more is required.

As the national economy improves and businesses begin expanding again, South Carolina must successfully recruit more branch manufacturing. True, it alone is not the long-term solution to creating and keeping well-paying jobs. But it's critical to help offset the massive loss of tens of thousands of jobs in an area of distinction for this state.

South Carolina is making smart, necessary investments in clustering and research in order to protect our industry strengths and develop others. But it will take years before those projects are likely to bear fruit.

In the meantime, this state must hit a few home runs on the industrial recruiting circuit, help grow its small businesses and aggressively retrain its workers for areas of employment growth.