DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Dorchester County employees will soon receive a pay raise. This means every job in the county will earn at least $15 per hour.

“March 20, we unanimously approved a pay increase for all of Dorchester County employees, which will actually take our minimum (wage) employee up to $15 an hour from $14 an hour,” explained Dorchester County Council Chairman Todd Friddle.

Even employees making above minimum wage will receive an average of a 7.15% pay raise.

“Which makes us so much more competitive in the marketplace, and improves our retention rate in the future,” Friddle said.

There are currently 932 full and 143 part-time employees in the county. They hope the higher pay will keep many of those employees, as well as attract people to fill the 150 vacant full and part-time jobs the county needs to fill.

“The key positions that we really want to make sure stay, you know, public service positions, public safety positions, EMS, fire rescue positions. How about the 911 Call Center? These are all critical positions. We can’t afford to lose these trained individuals to another entity.”

The pay increase takes effect on March 25th.

News 2 asked if taxes would need to be increased to pay for these raises, we’re told they have that covered. “There’s not going to be any millage increase. This is covered by the growth of the county,” Friddle said.

“The key is we want to make Dorchester County the county that everybody wants to come to work for. We want to make that the premier county in the Lowcountry.”

Click this link to see current jobs open in Dorchester County.