COLUMBUS – The number of jobs added by Ohio employers in January was dwarfed by those created nationwide last month, adding support to those who say the state’s recovery is lagging behind that of the rest of the nation as a whole.
Revisions performed annually, put Ohio’s 12-month job growth rate in 2014 at 1.5 percent, compared to the national average of 1.9 percent.
According to data released Friday morning by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the state’s unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in January, up from a revised 4.8 percent in December and half a point higher than the 14-year low of 4.4 percent in August and September.
Only 100 jobs were added over the month, compared with the robust 242,000 workers hired in the U.S. in February as retailers, restaurants and health care providers drove another solid month for the resilient American job market.
The pickup in job gains nationwide shows that the U.S. economy has largely weathered a broader global slowdown without suffering much blowback. Worker pay slipped last month after accelerating in January. But more Americans who had been sitting on the sidelines began searching for jobs and found them.
Employers expect solid consumer demand in the months ahead even though the stock market has turned turbulent, oil prices have hurt energy industry jobs and a stronger dollar has reduced export sales.
The Labor Department says the U.S. unemployment rate in February held steady at 4.9 percent.
Employment in Ohio grew 80,800 since January 2015 and The 5.4 million Ohioans who were employed in January was the largest number since December 2008.
In Ohio, job gains in trade, transportation and utilities; leisure and hospitality; educational and health services; financial activities; construction and manufacturing outweighed losses in mining, logging, professional and business services, and government at all levels.
The number of workers unemployed in Ohio increased by 6,000 – the same number as workers added to the labor force — but has decreased by 12,000 in the past 12 months while the labor force grew by 15,000.
Ohio’s labor force participation rate, the share of the population employed or actively seeking employment, was only 62.5 percent, a rate lower than any year since 1977.