South Carolina has seen its unemployment rate jump in recent months.
The latest figure for October reached a 25-year high at 8 percent. Hundreds of unemployed people showed up at the fairgrounds Wednesday for one of the state’s largest job fairs. The Employment Security Commission and the State Newspaper sponsored the event.
Debra Goings came to the job fair hoping to turn her luck around.
"I was laid off the end of August, I have been looking for work steadily since then,” Goings said.
This is the fourth time she’s been laid off. Goings worked in customer service and finance for nearly 30 years, but now she’s changing direction.
"I'm going to school, trying to go in the medical field. I'm doing a career change,” Goings said.
Michael Williams with the South Carolina Employment Security Commission says a lot of people find themselves in the same situation.
"There are folks that have had to accept jobs that they really didn't want to accept. The jobs of yesterday may never come back,” Williams said
Goings hopes that despite a bad economic forecast, a better tomorrow is around the corner.
She is currently studying medical billing and coding at Midlands Tech and hopes to get a job at Palmetto Health.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWACH