COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment rate fell by nearly 4% in May, to 13.7% from April’s revised 17.6%, as workers slowly returned to their jobs amid the phased-in restart of the state’s economy following the near-total shutdown in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The figures released Friday by the state were the latest to indicate that Ohio is gradually recovering from the economic disaster brought on by the outbreak. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits declined for the seventh straight week.
The department announced that Ohio employers added 127,100 in May, raising the number of Ohioans who were working from a revised 4.7 million in April to 4.8 million, according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor in cooperation with the agency.
The number of unemployed Ohioans was 788,000 in May, 211,000 fewer than in April.
Over 1.5 million Ohioans were idled over 12 weeks after Gov. Mike DeWine and then-health director Dr. Amy Acton shut down schools, factories, restaurants and stores to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Along with gains in construction and manufacturing, the service sector also regained 112,000 jobs as stores and restaurants slowly welcomed back customers and diners, though with strict sanitation requirements and with limits placed on the number of customers allowed in businesses at any one time. Weeks after being allowed to reopen many businesses remained shuttered.
The U.S. unemployment rate fell 1.4% in Ma to 13.3%.