COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent in May to 4.9 percent from 5.0 percent in April as employers added more than 6,000 jobs.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services released its monthly report Friday.
The number of Ohioans who reported they were employed increased by 6,300 from 5.509 million in April to 5.515 million in, according to a business establishment survey conducted by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and the ODJFS.
That is the highest number of working Ohioans since October 2008, but critics of the policies of Gov. John Kasich and Statehouse Republicans say the state continues to lag behind the rest of the nation, and even its own previous pace, in employment growth.
“The unemployment rate continues to be a positive point in the monthly jobs report, but it is cold comfort given the weak job growth,” said Hannah Halbert, workforce researcher with Policy Matters Ohio.
Halberts says the state is adding jobs at roughly half the national rate: 0.8 percent, compared to 1.6 percent. So far this year, Halbert says Ohio is gaining an average of 2,300 jobs per month while, during all of 2016, the state gained an average of approximately 4,100 jobs per month.
Last year’s growth was the slowest since the end of the recession, she said.
Halbert says large growth in public sector employment masked losses or sluggish growth in the private sector.
Job losses in manufacturing and construction were offset by 11,900 jobs added in the service and government sectors, including 13,500 in professional, business, educational and health services, and 6,300 in state and local government.
More Ohioans continue to enter the work force, which stands at a seven-year high of 5.5 million, a sign of optimism in the state’s economy.
The number of workers unemployed in Ohio in May was 286,000, a low point for the year so far and down 2,000 from April. The number of unemployed Ohioans has increased by 4,000 in the last year and May’s unemployment rate was unchanged from May 2016.
The U.S. unemployment rate for May 2017 was 4.3 percent.