State unemployment rate drops below 5 percent
Staff/wire report
YOUNGSTOWN
Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 percent last month, its lowest since September 2001 and the fourth-consecutive monthly decrease.
The state’s Department of Job and Family Services said Friday that Ohio had 278,000 unemployed workers in December. That’s down 9,000 compared with November, which had an unemployment rate of 5 percent.
The number of unemployed workers has dropped by 133,000 in the past year, and the jobless rate has fallen from 7.1 percent in December 2013.
Ohio’s unemployment rate has remained below the nation’s, which was 5.6 percent in December.
But Cleveland economist George Zeller said the state still is not gaining jobs fast enough.
“It is a mixed set of news,” Zeller said. “We were below the national job-growth rate for 26 consecutive months. That is still a serious issue.”
The positive news is we gained employment, but we are still behind the nation and we still need 108,000 jobs to be back where we were pre-recession, Zeller said.
“Something that is always important to the Mahoning Valley is manufacturing, and we did gain 1,500 manufacturing jobs in December,” he said.
The state’s nonagricultural wage and salary employment increased 5,100 over the month, according to the latest business survey by the U.S. Department of Labor and the state.
Employment in goods-producing industries increased to 880,500, thanks to the 2,900 jobs gained in manufacturing and construction.
The leisure and hospitality industries saw an employment boost of 7,100, while jobs in professional and business services were up 3,800. The gains outweighed the losses of 6,200 jobs in the trade, transportation and utilities industries, according to Friday’s report.
Overall, government employment dropped by 1,200 jobs, with losses of 1,500 in state- and local-government positions exceeding the 300 gained in the federal government.
The local unemployment numbers for December will come out Tuesday.