Valley job loss adds up to $1.6B

By Don Shilling

All Mahoning Valley counties have double-digit percentages of job losses.

Mahoning Valley workers are earning $1.6 billion a year less than they were in 2000 because of large job losses.

A study released Wednesday shows that Trumbull County has been hit hardest by a decade of job declines, losing 21 percent of its employment since 2000. Mahoning and Columbiana counties aren’t far behind, both with 10 percent drops in jobs.

Fewer jobs means less money coming into the local economy, said George Zeller, an economic research analyst from Cleveland who prepares the annual study of Ohio’s economy for the Cuyahoga County commissioners.

Trumbull County workers last year made a combined $1.08 billion less than they did in 2000, a 28 percent decline. It was the second-biggest percentage drop of any county in the state.

Mahoning’s total earnings have declined by $387 million a year, or 11 percent, and Columbiana’s have fallen $155 million, or 15 percent.

“When you have job losses of this magnitude, there is a lot of suffering on the part of families,” Zeller said.

Local governments also are feeling the pinch because of lower earnings, he said. Warren city officials said this week, for example, that they must cut expenses by up to $1.5 million to make up for a budget shortfall.

Losses in jobs and earnings could be worse than indicated in the report, however. The report notes that employment figures are as of mid-2008, so they do not take into account recent job losses.

Employment and payrolls have fallen drastically in Trumbull County because of cuts at General Motors and Delphi Packard Electric. Thousands of local workers have left both companies since 2006 with buyout offers.

GM’s Lordstown complex has reduced its hourly work force from 7,400 to 4,200 in the past nine years and is in the process of laying off 2,800 workers because of slow car demand. Packard has cut its hourly staff from 5,500 to 750 since 2000.

“Those have been two gigantic blows for Trumbull County,” Zeller said.

Twenty-eight of Ohio’s 88 counties had job gains this decade, led by Delaware County just north of Columbus. Its job count grew by 93 percent to about 70,000.

Zeller said the only industry that grew statewide this decade has been health care.

“That is hospitals, doctor’s offices, pharmacies — the entire medical field,” he said.

Otherwise, the state has been hurting, he said. Nationally, the 2000-01 recession lasted only about a year, but Ohio never came out of it, he said.

Ohio has lost 262,000, or 5 percent, of its jobs this decade. The manufacturing sector alone has lost 218,000 jobs since 2001.

The report calls the manufacturing loss troubling because the average annual wage in that sector is $50,000, compared with $38,000 in all other industries.

Zeller added that the current economic downturn is especially difficult. Normally, declines in manufacturing take an economy into a recession, but this time both financial companies and manufacturers are cutting back, he said.

“We have two major industries pulling us down right now, and that makes it hard to solve,” he said.

shilling@vindy.com