COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment rate declined for the fifth straight month, to 4.2% in February from 4.3% in January.
The state added 6,700 jobs during February, the fourth consecutive month of job gains, according to data released Friday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
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The number of Ohioans who reported they were working increased from a revised 5,432,700 in January to 5,439,400 in February, powered by gains in the service sector, which compensated for losses in construction and manufacturing.
The progressive-leaning policy group Policy Matters Ohio credit robust federal stimulus and relief programs with helping the state recover four-fifths of the jobs lost during the pandemic.
“Today’s jobs numbers keep us on track to fully recover more quickly than from the last three recessions,” said Policy Matters Ohio researcher, Michael Shields.
The jobless rate has dropped from 5.8% in February 2021 and the state reports Ohio added 103,200 jobs during that 12-month period.
Shields said following the release of January jobs data that there were about 155,000 fewer Ohioans in the workforce than before the disruption caused by the coronavirus and that the state has yet to recovered all the jobs lost in the Great Recession.
High court to weigh end of $300 weekly unemployment payment
The Ohio Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments over whether Gov. Mike DeWine had the legal ability to end the state’s participation in a federal pandemic unemployment aid program ahead of a government deadline for stopping the payments.
The program provided $300 in weekly coronavirus unemployment funds.
DeWine, a Republican, followed the position of business groups that said the weekly payment was making it difficult to recruit employees.
Critics of ending the payments 10 weeks early last June said workers had multiple reasons why they might not be returning to jobs.
The court on Thursday set a May 25 hearing.