COLUMBUS – One year after restrictions aimed at combatting the COVID-19 outbreak shuttered restaurants, stores, offices and factories, throwing more than 800,000 Ohioans onto the unemployment lines, the state has recovered about three-fourths of the jobs lost in the first weeks of the pandemic.
The unemployment rate in Ohio fell to 4.7% in March from 5.0 in February, its lowest level since February 2020, according to data released Friday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
The state’s jobless rate was lower than the national rate of 6.0%.
The state reported that the number of Ohioans who were employed grew by 12,700 to 5.315 million, indicating that the state had regained over 648,000 of the nearly 900,000 jobs lost between March and April 2020, or approximately 72.6% of the jobs lost in the economic shutdown.
There were still 243,200 fewer Ohioans working that in one year earlier, before the shutdown idled hundreds of thousands of workers.
Manufacturing, construction and other goods-producing industries lost 37,300 but the service sector shed 162,000 jobs.
Especially hard-hit was the leisure and hospitality sector, which lost nearly 69,000 jobs and continues to struggle with restaurants, bars and hotels challenged by occupancy restrictions and difficulty finding workers to fill openings.
Durable-goods manufacturing, educational, health and business services, and local government are also fighting to regain lost jobs.