COLUMBUS – The unemployment rate in Ohio dropped to a nearly 17-year low in March as employers added approximately 11,000 jobs, continuing the healthy pace of job growth seen during the first two months of the year.
The statewide unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in March 2018, down from 4.5 percent in February, and the lowest since August 2001, according to data released Friday morning by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
The state’s job growth has been surprisingly robust during 2018 as the 44,900 jobs added since December has already topped that of all of 2017 and is the highest number for the first quarter of any year since 2012, Hannah Halbert, researcher with Policy Matters Ohio.
“Ohio is not out of the woods,” Halbert said. “A bad month or two could erase this streak and more months of solid growth are needed to take up the remaining slack in our labor market.”
The quick start to the year was good news for those who say job growth has been sluggish in Ohio for at least the past two years. Halbert says 2017 was the weakest year since the end of the recession.
“While the emerging trend is positive and should elicit a sigh of relief after the abysmal 2016 and 2017 numbers, it is important to remember that monthly data is preliminary,” said Halbert.
Ohio has grown by just 3 percent to the nation’s 10.7 percent since a Republican-backed state tax overhaul in 2005, says Halbert, but President Larry Obhof (R-Medina) hailed 501,000 new private sector jobs created since Gov. John Kasich took office in 2011 as proof Republican policies are succeeding.
“We’ve done this through creating a jobs-friendly business environment, developing a jobs-ready workforce and empowering Ohio’s small businesses, the backbone of our economy,” Obhoff said.
A survey of households indicated that the number of Ohioans who said they were employed grew to nearly 5.6 million in March, buoyed by gains in manufacturing, construction; trade, transportation and utilities; leisure and hospitality, and local government.
The 253,000 unemployed workers in March was down 9,000 from February and has decreased by 40,000 in the year, when the unemployment rate was 5.1 percent.
The U.S. unemployment rate for March was 4.1 percent, unchanged from February.