A new listing suggests the “big quit” has hit South Carolina pretty hard as people look to change careers.
COLUMBIA, SC — A personal finance website that crunched the numbers says South Carolina has the second-highest quit rate in the United States.
WalletHub Reports that in its list of 2022 states with the highest quit rates, South Carolina was only passed by Alaska last year.
The list was based on two factors, quit rate in the past month and quit rate in the past year with data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The two data points are combined to get the overall ranking. But WalletHub also breaks down the individual percentages to give readers a better idea of how their state is performing. And those two percentages paint an interesting picture for Palmetto State.
As South Carolina’s 3.28% 12-month rate shares a three-way tie for eighth place with Wyoming and Idaho, the state soars to the top as it reviews quits over the past month. South Carolina is tied with Delaware for the highest quit rate over the past month at 3.8%. WalletHub gives double weight to this one-month score in its overall ranking.
CONTINUED: Read the full list of resignations here
So what’s behind the high quit rates in South Carolina? The survey does not suggest what may be happening in any particular state, but does suggest that it has ties to the current “big quit” pattern seen across the country.
Although there are many factors to this, WalletHub suggests that an increase in job openings in the United States, combined with new incentives to fill them, could encourage some to consider their options. In some cases, the site suggests that some simply want to move away from industries most affected by the COVID-19 virus.
Whatever the cause in South Carolina, the state Department of Employment and Manpower shows no real change in initial jobless claims among the workforce for several months, other than a slight uptick in January – a far cry from what was seen in March 2020 when the pandemic really took hold installed in the state.
