Unemployment down in Ohio, still higher than national rate

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The state’s unemployment rate in October dropped to 5.1 percent last month from 5.3 percent in September, according to state officials. Despite the drop, the rate is still higher than the national rate of 4.1 percent.

The national rate dropped from 4.2 percent in September.

Employment increased in professional and business services as well as transportation, hospitality, education, health care services, financial services and utilities.

Jobs were lost in information services, though the losses did not exceed the number of jobs created in the past month.

Cleveland economist George Zeller said in a statement that October was the 59th-consecutive month where Ohio’s unemployment rate was worse than the national average.

He also questioned the validity of certain figures in the report, suggesting other labor data contradict the state’s labor numbers.

“It finds that Ohio gained 13,000 employed workers and lost 9,000 unemployed workers for a net improvement of 22,000 workers. It is not possible for Ohio to gain 22,000 jobs during a month when Ohio actually gained only 4,300 jobs,” he said. “It is common for the state-level unemployment estimates to be less accurate than the simultaneously released employment data.”

Data for local unemployment statistics will be available Tuesday.