Veteran unemployment rate drops in S.C.

Listen to this article

South Carolina’s unemployment rate for veterans dropped to 3.3% in 2018, down from 3.9% percent in 2017, according to the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce.

The rate stood at 5% in 2016, the department said. Nationally, the unemployment rate for veterans, defined as men and women who served in the U.S. Armed Forces who were not on active duty at the time of the U.S. Department of Labor’s annual survey, was 3.5% in 2018.

G. Daniel Ellzey, confirmed as DEW executive director last week according to a news release from the agency, said initiatives such as the department’s Disabled Veteran Outreach Program and local veteran employment representatives help veterans find jobs.

“Their focus to find the right fit for veterans and their relationship with businesses to determine their workforce needs and inform them about specific advantages of hiring veterans is making a difference,” Ellzey said in a news release. “South Carolina is seeing the benefits of this effort.”

DEW’s veteran employment representatives work throughout the state to promote veterans as potential hires. The agency also partners with the S.C. National Guard on Operation Palmetto Employment, a project designed to streamline the transition from active duty to civilian life.

Ellzey, 72, is a Richland County native and a graduate of the University of South Carolina and USC’s School of Law. He is an employment and labor attorney in the Columbia office of Fisher Phillips.

“Dan Ellzey is widely recognized as one of the most experienced and accomplished employment and labor attorneys in South Carolina and is eminently qualified to lead this critically important state agency,” S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said in nominating him to the DEW post. “ … I’m confident that Mr. Ellzey will continue the agency’s tremendous work and will help take it to even greater heights.”