Region's Unemployment Rates Shoot Up in January
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The region's unemployment rates shot up in January from the month before, but overall were improved from a year ago.
Monthly data released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services showed that over-the-month unemployment rates rose by at least 1.5 percentage points in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Columbiana County saw the highest increase, from 7.6% in December to 9.9% last month. The rate in Mahoning County increased by more than two full points, to 9.4% in January from 7.3% in December. Trumbull’s increase was less steep, rising to 9.5% in January from 8.0% the month before.
Two of the three counties reported improved rates from January 2012, when unemployment was 10.2% in Columbiana County and 9.6% in Mahoning County. Trumbull County’s January rate was up from 9.2% a year earlier.
Unemployment rose in both of the Mahoning Valley’s two largest cities over the month. Youngstown reported an unemployment rate of 11.2% and Warren 9.9% in January, both up from 9.0% in December and both unchanged from January 2012.
In the metropolitan area that covers Mahoning and Trumbull counties in Ohio and Mercer County in Pennsylvania, the unemployment rate was 9.7%, up from 7.7% in December and from 9.3% in January 2012. For the Ohio-only portion of the metro area, unemployment was 9.4% in January, up from 7.7% as well in December and unchanged from the January 2012 rate.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.