Jobless rate drops in Mahoning Valley
Jobless rate drops in Mahoning Valley
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning Valley’s nonseasonally adjusted jobless rate dropped from 6.2 percent in April 2014 to 5.7 percent in April 2015.
The number of employed in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties went from 233,300 in April 2014 to 234,500 in April 2015, according to figures released Wednesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
A total of 14,100 people were listed as unemployed in April 2015 compared with 15,400 in the same month the year before.
The civilian labor force went unchanged year over year at 249,000.
Drilling permits
YOUNGSTOWN
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources issued 16 horizontal-drilling permits in the Utica-shale region for the week ending May 23. No permits were issued in the Mahoning Valley. The rig count is at 26. Of the 1,917 total permits issued, there are 1,494 permits drilled, with 897 of them producing.
Ribbon-cutting
youngstown
Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and Phil Panno, executive director of Sterling House of Youngstown, will be in attendance for today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony of the renamed Brookdale Cornersburg, formerly Sterling House of Youngstown, 2300 Canfield Road.
This is just one of the senior-living communities Brookdale operates that will have a name change.
The ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. Live entertainment will start at 11 a.m., and a cookout will begin at noon.
FCC takes aim at annoying robocalls
WASHINGTON
Those automated phone calls during the dinner hour, late at night or to your wireless phone can be so frustrating – and the government is taking note.
The head of the Federal Communications Commission circulated a proposal Wednesday designed to close loopholes, reaffirm current anti-robocall rules and encourage wireless and wireline carriers to do more to fight against unwanted telemarketing calls and spam text messages to consumers.
A key part of the plan: clearing up any confusion over whether the phone carriers can offer blocking services.
“We are giving the green light for robocall-blocking technology,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote in a blog-post on the commission website.
Drilling cutbacks lower job growth
WASHINGTON
Hammered by cheaper oil, drilling firms have laid off workers and dragged job growth lower in states from Texas to North Dakota.
In Oklahoma, mining and logging jobs, which mostly include oil and gas drilling, fell for the fifth-straight month in April. Texas lost 8,300 jobs in the sector, the most in six years, while Wyoming lost jobs in the industry for the fifth-straight month.
The figures, from a Labor Department report on state unemployment rates released Wednesday, show how the slowdown in the nation’s energy sector is weighing on the economy.
Staff/wire reports