PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota's unemployment insurance system has recovered from the financial problems that plagued it during the recession, and businesses are once again starting to hire workers, state Labor Secretary Pam Roberts said Wednesday.
"We are starting to see in the Department of Labor that the demand for workers statewide is really perking up," Roberts said at a meeting of a state advisory council on unemployment insurance.
Only 2,492 people were receiving jobless benefits in the last week of September this year, down from 4,695 in the same week two years ago, state Unemployment Insurance director, Pauline Heier, said. In September this year, 1,613 people were receiving benefits from the state trust fund, which covers the first 26 weeks of unemployment. The other 879 were getting benefits from federal funds that give extended coverage for jobless people.
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Rising unemployment during the recession drained that state trust fund that pays unemployment benefits in 2009, putting the fund in the red and triggering a surcharge on employers who pay taxes into the system. With the help of federal stimulus money, the surcharges and increased unemployment insurance tax payments by some employers, the system improved to the point that the surcharge was removed a year ago.
Heier said the trust fund held $28.2 million at the end of September and is expected to grow to $33.1 million by the end of this year and to $41.5 million by the end of 2012.
Roberts said the decline in people getting unemployment benefits is a sign South Dakota's economy is returning to normal in terms of layoffs.
Council member David Owen of Sioux Falls, president of the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said part of the decline might be because some jobless people have hit the end of their eligibility for benefits.
But Heier said most of the decline is attributable to people who stopped getting benefits because they found jobs.
South Dakota's unemployment rate has been holding steady at about 4.7 percent in recent months.
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