A new wave of surprising layoffs now hits South Carolina as more businesses file WARN notices advising of upcoming job cuts in the state.
Tupperware is advising it will shut down its only U.S. manufacturing plant resulting in a total of 148 employees losing their jobs.
Tupperware filed a notice with the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce advising that 148 employees in Heminway will lose their jobs next January.
However, Tupperware isn’t the only company that recently warned of upcoming layoffs in South Carolina.
Also filing a layoff notice this week was Caterpillar.
The company is closing a facility in Sumter in September which will lead to a total of 109 employees losing their jobs.
So far for 2024, there has been approximately 2,428 layoffs in South Carolina across 26 businesses according to the latest WARN data.
Below is a list of prominent businesses who have advised of job cuts in the state:
- Carolina Cotton Works is closing a facility in Gaffney resulting in 120 employees losing their jobs on July 2.
- Last week FedEx filed a notice advising 241 employees across facilities in West Columbia, Myrtle Beach, and Florence would be terminated on September.
- T-Roc Global laid off 100 staff in South Carolina on May 31.
- Logistics Support filed a notice with the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce stating that 98 employees lost their jobs on June 7.
- The Bic Corporation filed a notice advising of impending job cuts due to a permanent closure of a facility in Gaffney. The business will transition operations at the Gaffney plant, which produces a limited supply of BIC Markers, to two BIC factories in France and Mexico. As a result, 46 employees will lose their jobs at the end of the year.
- Gentherm, which supplies heated seats for the automotive facility, announced it was moving the manufacturing production undertaken at the South Carolina facility to Mexico. The closure resulted in 124 staff at the facility losing their jobs in May.
- Stanley and Decker are also closing at the end of the year, resulting in 192 employees losing their jobs. In 2023, the company closed a facility in Chesterfield, leading to 179 job losses.
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Also Read: Retirees Will Now Receive More Money For Social Security
Other Economy News Today
Applications for unemployment benefits now surge to new highs, a sign that the white-hot labor market is starting to cool off.
First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 231,000, the highest level since August, per CNN.
Thursday’s data also showed that the number of continuing claims, or applications from people who have filed for unemployment for at least one week, was 1.78 million.
That’s an increase of 17,000 from the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The latest numbers come less than a week after the monthly jobs report showed the US economy added just 175,000 positions in April, less than economists expected and a steep drop-off from prior months.
US employers have now added an average of 245,500 jobs per month, versus 2023’s 251,000-per-month average.
Still, hiring remains strong. Although the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% last month, it’s the 27th consecutive month that the jobless rate has held under 4%, matching a streak last seen in the late 1960s.
Weekly jobless claims data tends to be volatile but, while one week’s worth of data “does not a trend make,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds.
“We can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”
“Company layoffs are picking up, hinting at caution on the part of companies as they weigh the outlook for the second half of the year,” he wrote in a note Thursday.
The Federal Reserve has been battling inflation by raising its key lending rate in the hopes of slowing the economy.
While the labor market has so far resisted those efforts, remaining white hot for the past 18 months despite 11 rate hikes from the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that demand has “cooled from its extremely high level of a couple of years ago.”
Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Economics said in a note Thursday: “We’d need to see at least a month of elevated readings to convince us that the trend really has turned.”
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Also Read: A Giant Company Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Virginia
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I wish I could say that this is surprising, but as someone living in South Carolina, it’s far from it. Not only has the economy been gasping for breath in this state, but the sheer number of companies that are running on a skeleton crew (or less) has become commonplace. There’s a huge gap in the number of people who are of the age to work and the age of retirement, this state leaning toward the latter of the two because it does not tax people on Social Security. South Carolina’s overwhelming majority hold with the republican party also continues to not only stunt South Carolina’s growth by implementing policies against progressive thinking or action, it actively suggests bills that lean heavily on control of it’s citizens’ basic human rights. Would you believe that a bill was actually presented in South Carolina punishing abortion with the death penalty? Thankfully it didn’t pass, but the fact that it was even considered is very telling, and it scares away potential younger residents before the severe lack of jobs can. This state is still run like it’s the 1800s. Ask any worker here, and I’m confident that you’ll get a resounding negative response of “overworked, underpaid, and treated like less than human”.
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