Signals of a long-awaited economic recovery are popping up in South Carolina and across the country for the first time in about two years.
Economists point to a series of bright spots, including one that the state has most been waiting on, an easing in the rate that workers are losing their jobs each month.
The good news on the national scene is a jump in the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future activity, that is up 1.4 percent in March, the fastest pace of growth in 10 months.
To Mary Graham, senior vice president of public policy of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, summarizing the early stages of the recovery is easy: ‘We have stopped going in the wrong direction.’
The statewide unemployment rate ”” 12.2 percent in March ”” is down slightly after spending a year at levels not reached since the Great Depression and among the highest levels in the nation. That couples five-straight months of statewide job growth.