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Valley unemployment rate creeps up
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning Valley’s unemployment rate in May once again showed the area’s slow growth.
The nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6 percent in May 2016, according to figures released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Last May, the Valley’s unemployment rate was 5.8 percent.
“It wasn’t a particularly good report,” said Mekael Teshome, PNC economist.
The number of unemployed in the tri-county area of Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties went from 14,600 in May 2015 to 15,100 in May this year.
The number of employed went down by 300, and the civilian labor force, which is the sum of the employed and unemployed, went unchanged at 250,000.
Teshome said that the slump in the energy and steel industries has impacted the region’s economy and slowed growth here.
“It makes for a fairly weak employment situation,” he said. “[The economy] is not going backwards, but the move forward has been painfully slow.”
In Mahoning County alone, the unemployment rate went unchanged at 5.8 percent. The number of unemployed in the county also stayed the same at 6,300 while the number of employed went from 101,700 in May 2015 to 101,600 in May this year. The civilian labor force in the county was 107,800, down from 108,000 reported in May 2015.
In Trumbull County, the unemployment rate was up from 6.1 percent in May 2015 to 6.2 percent in May 2016. The number of unemployed went from 5,700 to 5,800 and the number of employed dropped by 200. The civilian labor force stayed the same at 92,400.
In Columbiana County, the unemployment rate went from 5.4 percent reported in May 2015 to 6.1 percent in May this year. The number of unemployed jumped from 2,700 to 3,100 in May 2016 and the number of employed dropped by 100. The civilian labor force went from 49,900 to 50,200 year over year.
Ohio’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate reported last Friday was 5.1 percent in May, down from 5.2 percent in April.
Ohio’s nonagricultural wage and salary employment increased 9,200 over the month, from a revised 5,477,600 in April to 5,486,800 in May. The civilian labor force saw a slight increase from 5,817,000 to 5,826,000.
A significant loss across the state was in the goods-producing industries where 4,600 jobs were lost in manufacturing, 1,300 were lost in construction and 200 were lost in mining and logging.
“Those three are key drivers of Ohio’s economy,” Teshome said.
The U.S. unemployment rate for May was 4.7 percent, down from 5 percent in April and down from 5.5 percent in May 2015.