Valley unemployment claims down from previous week

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

New unemployment-compensation claims in the Mahoning Valley for the first week of March were listed at 479.

Continued claims that week for the Valley totaled 5,602, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The previous week, ending Feb. 28, there were 763 new claims in the Valley, and continued claims totaled 5,299.

In all 88 counties in Ohio for the first week of March, there were 8,601 new claims and 96,930 continued claims.

The previous week there were 11,175 new claims for all counties and 99,216 continued claims.

Of the three counties in the Valley, Mahoning had the highest number of new claims made in the first week of March with 217. It also had the most continued claims with 329.

These claims are based upon where the person requesting the claim lives, not where he or she works.

George Zeller, a Cleveland-based economist, calculates the four-week moving averages of the claims for the seven large urban areas in the state, including the Youngstown-Warren area. Based on his analysis, the area is seeing job growth.

His latest calculation, which includes Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties’ claims over the past four weeks, shows the area with an average of 635 claims. This is compared with the four-week rolling average in 1999 of 649. This means the area’s recent average is 2.2 percent below the March 1999 level of 649. Zeller compares the two, since 1999 represents a normal level of new unemployment claims during a period of growth in the business cycle.

The Youngstown-Warren area is 13.4 percent above the March 2000 four-week rolling average of 560.

Job growth is generated if the level of new claims for unemployment is lower than 1999 and early 2000 levels in months not during the winter.