COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment rate increased for the fourth straight month, to 5.1 percent, as more people looked for jobs and found them, according to a monthly report released Friday morning by the state.
The jobless rate was up from a revised 5.0 percent in February and is at its highest point since November 2014, according to the report from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Employers have added almost 95,000 jobs in the last 12 months as the number of people participating in the state’s labor force has grown by approximately 40,000 workers to almost 5.8 million and those who were working approached 5.5 million, a level not seen since October 2008 as the nation teetered on the brink of recession.
More than 18,000 jobs were added over the month, from a revised 5.48 million in February to 549 million in March, according to a survey of businesses by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the state.
Since the official start of the recession in December 2007, Ohio has experienced 1.4 percent annual job growth, less than half of the national average of 3.9 percent, according to the non-partisan polucy group Policy Matters Ohio.
Last month’s gain would give Ohio a 0.34 percent growth rate in the first quarter of 2016, an improvement over last year’s 0.08 percent, but is a fraction of the 1.11 percent in early 2012, the state’s best post-recession quarter.
“The March job gain is good enough to put 2016 on par with our better post-recovery first quarters, but it’s still far from our best,” said researcher Hannah Halbert.
Gov. John Kasich has been touting the state’s economic recovery consistently throughout his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
The number of unemployed workers increased, to 294,000 in March from 285,000 in February, but 94,700 workers also found jobs.
Growth in March came mostly from the service sector — especially professional, business, educational and health services – and in government, much of it at the local level.
The gains more than offset losses in manufacturing and construction.
The U.S. unemployment rate for March was 5.0 percent, up from 4.9 percent in February and down from 5.5 percent in March 2015.