COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment fell to 4.8 percent in July, reflecting an increase in the number of people looking for work and finding it.
That was a decline of 0.2 percent from the 5.0 percent in June and is the lowest monthly rate of the year, according to data released Friday morning by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
“We see nothing but positive” in the report, said department spokesman Jon Keeling, who pointed to the growth in the state’s labor force over the previous 12 months and the addition of 78,800 jobs as one of those positive signs.
The number of people participating in the workforce has increased by 97,000 since July 2015, with 11,000 workers filing for benefits last month.
“When people enter the labor force, they either have or are looking for jobs and – with 97,000 of them entering the labor force and 11,000 of them still looking — that means the vast majority of those people have found jobs,” Keeling said.
At least one policy group has consistently reported that Ohio’s job growth has lagged behind the rest of the nation since before the onset of the 2007-08 recession.
The state’s overall job growth rate since December 2007 is 1.4 percent, compared to a national average of 4.2 percent, according to the liberal-leaning Policy Matters Ohio.
“Ohio’s post-recession strategy of underinvesting in public services in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest has not produced the robust job growth promised by austerity advocates,” the group’s workforce researcher, Hannah Halbert, wrote in its most recent jobs report. “The recovery has been slow and shallow, with many communities being left behind.”
Employment increased by 11,400, from a revised 5.49 million in June to 5.51 million in July while the number of unemployed workers fell to 278,000, its lowest level since December.
Jobs were added in manufacturing, service and in local and state government.
The July unemployment rate for Ohio was 0.1 percentage points higher than the July 2015 rate of 4.7 percent. The U.S. unemployment rate for July was 4.9 percent.
Growth in the last year has been fueled by job gains in educational and health services, leisure and hospitality; trade, transportation, and utilities and state government.
Job losses were seen in construction, but that sector has added 6,000 jobs in 2016 and many of the manufacturing jobs gained last month were seen in the high-paying durable-goods sector, Keeling said