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Valley jobless rate drops for 2nd straight month
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By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning Valley’s unemployment rate fell for the second-straight month in March and now sits at 10.3 percent, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties added 6,400 workers over the past year, and there are nearly 10,000 fewer unemployed. The unemployment rate peaked in March 2010 at 13.8 percent.
Columbiana (10.8 percent), Mahoning (10.2 percent) and Trumbull (10 percent) all fell by nearly a percentage point compared to February’s statistics.
Ohio unemployment is at 8.9 percent; the national rate is 8.8.
Gloria Mathews, communications assistant for the Mahoning and Columbiana One-Stops, said many retail chains shed workers after the winter holiday season, which typically causes a dramatic early-year spike in unemployment that declines in the spring.
Mathews said the One-Stop has seen an increasingly steady flow of work orders across all fields.
“We’re not talking big, huge, fancy numbers,” she said. “They’ve been coming in at a nice steady pace. That, at the end of the day, improves the unemployment picture.”
Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, at an McDonald’s National Hiring Day event, said he was pleased with the new unemployment figures, which are trending back toward pre-2009 statistics. The last time the Valley’s unemployment rate was less than 10 percent was in December 2008.
“It’s moving in the right direction,” Williams said. “It must continue, and hopefully, it begins to accelerate a little bit more.
“At the end of the day, we’re all gauged by the level of employment or unemployment.”
Local McDonald’s locations conducted interviews Tuesday to begin hiring 800 new employees in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, and Mac Trailer Manufacturing, in Salem and Alliance, has begun hiring 100 new workers.
The Valley’s civilian labor force decreased by 3,000 in the past year.
The U.S. Department of Labor defines the civilian labor force as people age 16 and older who are currently working or looking for work. It excludes members of the military, students and volunteer workers, as well as those who are in institutions, retired or unable to work.
Not counted in the statistics are those unemployed who have given up looking for work and therefore aren’t counted as unemployed.