Ohio jobless rate hits 15-year high

The number of jobless workers stood at 430,000 in July.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Ohio’s unemployment rate reached 7.2 percent in July, the highest level in more than 15 years, led by job losses in the leisure and hospitality industries, state officials said Friday.

The jobless rate was up from 6.6 percent in June and topped the national unemployment rate of 5.7 percent.

The last time Ohio’s unemployment rate was this high was in December 1992, when it also was 7.2 percent.

The number of unemployed workers in July was 430,000, up from 394,000 the previous month, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Ohio has suffered from the national economic slowdown and auto industry weakness, according to Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics in the Cleveland suburb of Pepper Pike.

“I’m sad to say things are going to continue to get worse before they get better,” he said.

About 3,000 jobs were lost in the leisure and hospitality industry, and another 2,500 in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, data released Friday showed. A downsizing in state government also helped lower government employment by 1,300.

Work-force leaders say people are responding to the tough job market by trying to improve their skills.

In Marion County in north-central Ohio, the county agency helping job seekers is working with nearly 200 people to upgrade job skills, up about 10 percent over last year, administrator Harry Simmons said.

In Akron, Bonnie Dykes, 64, said she hopes learning office computer programs with the nonprofit Mature Services agency will help her land an administrative job after 22 months of looking.

She said working alongside other unemployed people helps morale. “That helps a lot. We’re all in the same boat here,” she said Friday.

Dykes had two recent interviews but didn’t get a job offer. Age wasn’t a factor because the employer was taking referrals from Mature Services, she said.

In Cincinnati, Brandon Nelson, 29, is looking for work while selling Streetvibes, a newspaper published by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. He gets to keep 75 cents for every $1 paper sold.

“I’ve been checking on a lot of different places. I think they’re just getting a lot of applications now,” he said.

Nelson said he lost his factory job in Adams County, in rural Appalachia, two years ago and has been trying to find a factory or trucking job. “Right now, they’re not doing any hiring,” he said.

Sandy Heath, whose Cleveland employment agency is recruiting 20 people with accounting skills for $13 to $16 hourly temporary jobs, said just nine people showed up at her state-sponsored job fair Friday.

She said some people balk at a temporary job, preferring to wait for something permanent. Many employers have money to hire temps but aren’t authorized to make full-time hires, she said.

Gov. Ted Strickland’s spokesman, Keith Dailey, said Strickland was working on several fronts to address employment issues, including a $1.57 billion job stimulus package and a new law promoting growth of an alternative energy industry.