For about a year, the federal government’s monthly estimates showed the Charleston region’s job count going nowhere. This spring the count started climbing, and by late summer it was rising fast.
Employers in the three-county metro area had 440,300 payroll jobs in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, 8,600 more than a year earlier, according to figures the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce released Oct. 20. That 2% gain was more than double the 0.9% annual gain the agency first reported for August, which it has since revised upward.
The bigger story is the path the region took to get here. From the spring of 2025 through February 2026, the seasonally adjusted count hovered between about 429,800 and 433,700, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since February it has risen in every month but June, adding about 10,500 jobs, a Charleston Business Report analysis of the bureau’s figures shows. Those monthly figures come from a survey, and tax records already suggest last winter’s slump was milder than the survey shows.
The analysis of the bureau’s industry estimates also shows that the growth has been lopsided. Measured over the first nine months of the year, construction and manufacturing account for nearly all of the net gain, while several service industries that the region leans on have shrunk.
Builders and factories lead
Averaged over the first nine months of the year, the metro area had about 2,600 more jobs than in the same months of 2025, a gain of 0.6%. Goods-producing industries, which in Charleston means mostly construction and manufacturing, added about 2,500 of them.
Private service businesses as a group, a category that runs from restaurants and retailers to engineering firms and hospitals, employed about 800 fewer people on average than a year earlier. Government added about 900, as gains in state government, which includes public colleges and universities, outweighed losses in federal and local government.
Construction, which the bureau groups with the region’s small mining and logging industry, reached 27,800 jobs in September, matching July and up 1,600 from a year earlier. Manufacturing hit 35,800 in August and stood at 35,700 in September, up 1,900. Those were the highest monthly counts for both industries in federal data going back to 1990.
Factory employment had drifted down through most of 2025 and stayed below year-earlier levels until April. Since then it has risen almost every month.
A late surge in office jobs
September’s preliminary numbers show one more industry joining in. Professional and business services, which includes engineering, accounting, legal, consulting and staffing firms, had 72,100 jobs in September, 4,200 more than a year earlier and the largest gain of any industry group.
That sector had a rough winter. It fell to 65,900 jobs in January, its lowest count since mid-2024, before climbing back. Because its rebound came so late, it added only about 400 jobs on average over the first nine months.
Health care and private education added about 600 jobs on average, a 1.2% gain. Financial firms added about 100.
Where jobs are shrinking
Leisure and hospitality, the hotels, restaurants and attractions that serve the region’s visitors, employed fewer people than a year earlier in eight of the first nine months of 2026. On average the industry had about 1,200 fewer jobs, a 2.1% drop. It caught up to last year’s level only in September, at 54,200.
Transportation, warehousing and utilities have been below year-earlier levels every month this year. The group had 18,000 jobs in September, 700 fewer than a year earlier. The decline has come as container volume at the Port of Charleston fell 8.7% in the first nine months of the calendar year, according to SC Ports, though the employment data don’t show which employers cut jobs.
The information industry, which includes publishers, telecommunications companies and some software firms, fell to 7,300 jobs in September from 8,200 a year earlier. Federal employment dropped to 11,300 from 11,800, and is down from 12,400 in January 2025.
Pay is rising faster than prices, barely
Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers in the metro area were $36.59 in September, according to the bureau, up 4.6% from a year earlier. Over the first nine months of the year, hourly pay averaged $36.14, up 3.9%, a Charleston Business Report analysis of the bureau’s figures found.
Prices rose too. The consumer price index for the South rose 3.4% from September 2025 to September 2026, and its average for the first nine months was 3% higher than a year earlier, the analysis found. That leaves Charleston-area workers with a real raise of roughly 1% on average, before taxes.
The industries adding the most jobs pay more than average. In the first quarter of 2026, the most recent period available, private employers in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties paid an average of $1,438 a week, according to a Charleston Business Report analysis of BLS county wage records. Manufacturing averaged $1,983 a week, construction $1,742 and professional and business services $1,691.
Leisure and hospitality averaged $617 a week, the lowest of any industry. The bureau’s averages count part-time and full-time jobs alike, which pulls down pay figures in industries such as restaurants. Information was the highest at $3,201, followed by financial activities at $2,799.
Average weekly pay differs widely across the three counties: $1,492 in Charleston County, $1,434 in Berkeley County and $1,081 in Dorchester County in the first quarter, counting public and private employers.
How Charleston compares
The summer surge brought the region roughly in line with the state. South Carolina’s seasonally adjusted payrolls grew 2.3% from September to September, according to the state. The Greenville-Anderson-Greer metro grew 2.5%, Myrtle Beach 3.9% and Columbia 1%.
Measured over the first nine months, though, Charleston is still behind. Its 0.6% average gain trails the statewide 1.3%, Greenville’s 1.7% and Myrtle Beach’s 2.8%, though it is ahead of the nation’s 0.2%, the analysis found. Savannah, Georgia, grew 0.5%.
Charleston and Columbia are now nearly tied for the second-largest job market in the state, with 440,300 and 440,000 seasonally adjusted jobs in September. A year earlier, Columbia had about 3,900 more.
Why the numbers may change
Metro-area job estimates come from a monthly federal survey of employers, and September’s figures are preliminary. BLS revises each month’s estimate the following month. Once a year it also benchmarks the series against tax records that count nearly every job, and it has scheduled the next benchmark for metro areas for March 2027. That revision will change this year’s figures and some of last year’s. Benchmark revisions can be large for a single industry in a single metro area.
Tax records already point to an upward revision for last winter. The bureau’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which counts jobs covered by unemployment insurance, shows employment in the three counties was 1.6% higher in February 2026 than a year earlier and 1% higher in March, a Charleston Business Report analysis of the county figures found. The monthly survey estimates show declines from a year earlier in both months. By the tax-record count, the region kept adding jobs through the winter, though more slowly than a year before. Statewide, the bureau’s preliminary benchmark estimate, released in August, would raise South Carolina’s March 2026 job count by about 11,600, or 0.5%; it did not include metro areas Charleston’s size.
How we did this
We downloaded monthly Current Employment Statistics for the Charleston-North Charleston metro area, South Carolina, other metros and the nation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Industry comparisons use figures that are not seasonally adjusted, compared with the same months a year earlier, so seasonal swings cancel out. Nine-month figures are averages of January through September. Seasonally adjusted totals come from the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce’s Oct. 20 release and the bureau. Record highs are measured against the bureau’s monthly figures for the metro area back to 1990. Weekly wages come from the bureau’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for the first quarter of 2026, combined across the three counties; we also compared that census’s monthly employment counts for the three counties, available through March 2026, with the survey estimates for the same months. Inflation comes from the bureau’s consumer price index for the South region.
