The unemployment rate in the Charleston-North Charleston metro area fell to 3.2% in September from 3.7% in August, according to figures the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce released Oct. 20. A year earlier, the rate was 3.9%. County and metro rates are not seasonally adjusted, so they still include regular seasonal swings.

Charleston County’s rate dropped to 3% from 3.5%, the lowest of the state’s 46 counties. Berkeley and Dorchester counties were each at 3.3%.

Employers in the three-county metro area had 440,300 nonfarm jobs in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, 1,800 more than in August and 8,600 more than a year earlier, the agency said. That 2% annual gain matched Spartanburg’s but trailed the statewide pace of 2.3%, the Greenville area’s 2.5% and Myrtle Beach’s 3.9%.

The new report also revised August upward. The agency now puts the metro area’s August payrolls at 438,500. Its first estimate, released Sept. 18, was 435,700, which showed annual growth of just 0.9%. The September figures are preliminary, and the agency says all of its estimates are subject to revision.

The count of working residents points the same way. The number of employed people living in the three counties rose by about 18,800 from September 2025, to about 460,200, a Charleston Business Report tally of the agency’s county figures shows.

Statewide, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 4%, below the national rate of 4.2%. It was the seventh straight monthly decline, agency Executive Director William Floyd said. Leisure and hospitality added the most jobs over the past year statewide, 17,100, followed by education and health services, with 11,300.

“South Carolina currently has the fastest growing labor force in the nation in 2026,” Floyd said in a statement.

Layoff notices have been scarce locally. Six employers in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties have filed notices under the federal WARN Act with the state this year, covering 624 workers, according to the agency’s WARN report through Oct. 22. The most recent, from ABM Industry Groups in North Charleston, was dated April 7.