Ohio Unemployment Rate Drops to 6.5% in February
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s unemployment rate fell nearly half a percentage point in February from the month before, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reports this morning. The statewide unemployment rate last month was 6.5%, down from 6.9% in January. In February 2013, the state unemployment rate was 7.3%.
According to the monthly data, nonfarm wage and salary employment decreased 4,600 over the month, from a revised 5,284,600 in January to 5,280,000 in February. The number of workers unemployed in Ohio was 377,000, down 18,000 from 395,000 in January. Over the past year, the number of unemployed had decreased by 44,000 from 421,000.
The U.S. unemployment rate for February was 6.7%, up from 6.6% in January but down from 7.7% in February 2013.
Earlier this week, an email from Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor touted a report indicating Ohio ranked second in the nation for job creation and No. 1 in the Midwest since January 2011. “This means that more Ohioans are back to work after years of record job losses under Democrat leadership, and our families and communities are stronger,” she said in the email, which also solicited campaign donations.
Another fundraising email, from campaign communications director Connie Wehrkamp, touted the more than 238,000 private-sector jobs Ohio has added since Kasich took office. The state has improved from 47th to fifth in job creation as well, the email stated.
The gubernatorial campaign of Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, a Democrat looking to unseat Gov. John Kasich this year, targeted the 4,600 job loss figure cited in the report, “led mostly by the loss of 8,100 jobs in construction,” the campaign said in a statement emailed late this morning by the campaign. The release also pointed out the downward revision, by 1,000, of the January jobs number.
“The fact remains that John Kasich’s agenda only works for the most well-off Ohioans. His ideas don’t work for the middle class and those families living paycheck to paycheck who are just one bad day away from financial disaster,” FitzGerald said. What he characterized as Kasich’s “schemes” provide thousands of dollars in tax cuts to those who make more than $250,000 annually, “while shifting tax increases to working families who can least afford them,” he said. “We have tried this before and it doesn’t work,” he remarked.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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