COLUMBUS – The Columbus region is usually the bright spot among the economies of Ohio’s largest cities, but with the state in the clutches of a crippling shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the area’s unemployment rate is merely the least dismal.
According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the jobless rate in central Ohio jumped 9.5% between March and April to 13.7%, lowest among the state’s largest metropolitan areas. The unemployment rates in the regions surrounding Cleveland and Toledo are above 20%.
Many of Ohio’s 88 counties recorded unemployment rates above 20% with Logan County, northwest of Columbus, reporting the state’s highest rate at 30.1%.
The statewide unemployment rate in April was 16.8%, the highest since the state began its modern method of record-keeping in 1972. The U.S. unemployment rate was 14.7% as businesses closed their doors and employers laid off workers under government orders and health directives telling Americans to avoid leaving their homes unnecessarily.
Ohio and many other states have begun to reopen their economies after nine weeks of idleness that threw over a million Ohioans out of work.