COLUMBUS – Ohio’s unemployment rate increased for the sixth time in eight months in April as employers shed jobs while more people were looking for work.
The April jobless rate was 5.2 percent, up from 5.1 percent in March, according to a monthly report released Friday from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Employment decreased by 13,600 over the month, from a revised 5.49 million in March to 5.48 million in April 2016, according to the latest survey of employers by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics and the ODJFS.
Ohio employers have added 71,900 jobs, or 1.3 percent, since last April, compared to the nation’s 1.9 percent, says nonpartisan Polucy Matters Ohio.
There were 8,000 additional workers requesting jobless benefits last month as 28,000 joined the labor force – the pool of available workers – the seventh straight monthly increase, which signals growing optimism among workers. The number of unemployed Ohioans has increased by 15,000 in the past 12 months and unemployment rate was 0.2 percentage points higher than April 2015.
The U.S. unemployment rate for April was 5.0 percent, unchanged from March and down from 5.4 percent in April 2015.
With the exceptions of construction, financial activities and educational and health services, jobs were lost in every economic sector. Hardest hit were local government, professional and business services, and manufacturing, the state’s data indicated.
The report came after some potential good news for Ohio businesses, which stand to save millions next year under a new plan to pay off the state’s lingering unemployment compensation debt to the federal government.
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The proposal, pushed by Republican Senate President Keith Faber, would tap state funds to knock out Ohio’s debt by Nov. 10. That’s the deadline to avoid a sixth annual jump in federal tax penalties on Ohio businesses set for Jan. 1.
With the loan repaid by the state, the federal unemployment tax rate on Ohio businesses would revert to normal levels. The businesses then would pay a smaller surcharge the first half of 2017 to repay the state.
Faber said businesses would pay about $90 per employee in 2017, about half what they would pay if the loan is not repaid.