April jobless rate is 5.9 percent

By Kalea Hall

khall@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The drop in the Mahoning Valley’s civilian labor force tells the story of workers leaving the job market.

The labor force, which takes into account how many unemployed and employed workers there are, declined by 2,000 from April 2016 to April 2017.

The nonseasonally adjusted jobless rate in the Valley dropped to 5.9 percent in April 2017, from 6.4 percent reported in April 2016, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Tuesday.

The number of unemployed dropped to 14,400 from 15,700, but the number of employed also dropped, from 229,200 to 228,300.

“I think from a year ago we have lost momentum,” said Mekael Teshome, PNC Bank economist.

George Zeller, a Cleveland-based economist, said the drop in the unemployment rate is a result of a technical factor.

“The technical problems make them [the numbers] look better than they actually are,” Zeller said.

Zeller said since 2000, the Mahoning Valley has lost 123,400 jobs.

“We want to get the workers back to being employed,” Zeller said. “That’s the goal so that people can support their families, but we just have not gotten everyone back to work.”

In 2000, the civilian labor force was 281,000 and is now down 38,000 to 243,000.

“I would say a good portion of those are people who left the area,” Teshome said.

But some of those numbers represent discouraged workers who left the labor force.

“There’s still a number of workers who cannot find a job because our growth rate is too slow,” Zeller said.

Ohio’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5 percent in April, down from 5.1 percent in March.

The U.S. unemployment rate for April was 4.4 percent, 0.1 percentage points lower than in March and 0.6 percentage points lower than in April 2016.