COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped for the third straight month in December to pandemic-era low of 4.5% in December, down from 4.8% in November and 1.1% lower than it was at the end of 2020.
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The state added 8,800 jobs, the fourth straight month of gains, led by hiring in construction, professional and business services; trade, transportation and utilities, and other services. There were declines in manufacturing, leisure and hospitality and government employment, according to data released Friday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
There were 5.405 million Ohioans who reported being employed in December, which means the state added 164,000 jobs during the year, but remained short of recovering the 204,000 jobs lost since before the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020.
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Transportation, warehousing, utilities and retail are the only sectors that had fully recovered jobs lost since the start of the recession, researcher Michael Shields, of the nonpartisan study group Policy Matters Ohio, wrote in November.
The rate of participation in the labor force in Ohio has dropped from 62.2% in December 2020 to 61.5% last month, the state reported.