Data released by the Oho Department of Jobs and Family Services on May 16 shows unemployment rates continuing to drop across the state of Ohio. Ohio’s unemployment rate, which was at 6.1% in March, dropped again and is at 5.7% for the month of April.
This marks the second month in a row that saw rates improving among all of Ohio’s 88 counties. Locally, Fulton County’s unemployment rate saw significant improvement, dropping from 7.3% to 5.7% from March to April. Williams County also saw improvement, dropping from 5.7% to 5.1% in the time frame. In terms of state wide rankings, Williams County moved from 64th to 53rd while Fulton County moved from 24th to 35th. The state rankings rank counties 1st through 88th with the highest unemployment rate ranked first. The fall in ranking for Williams County is due to improvement in other counties within the state.
Statewide, unemployment ranged from a low of 3.0% in Mercer County to a high of 10.7% in Monroe County, which was at 12.5% just one month ago. Counties with the lowest rates included Mercer (3.0%), Holmes (3.4%) Auglaize (3.6%), Delaware (3.6%), Union (3.8%), and Hancock (4.0%). Counties with the highest rates included Monroe (10.7%), Pike (9.0%), Morgan (8.6%), and Meigs (8.5%).
The total number of Ohioans unemployed decreased 26,000 from 354,000 in March to 328,000 in April. Areas seeing job growth over the last month included the private goods producing sector (+6800); trade, transportation, and utilities (+6200); other services (+2900); manufacturing (+2100); local government (+2000); state government (+1800); leisure and hospitality (+1100), federal government (+800), and information (+400). Losses were seen in educational and health services (-2800), construction (-900), professional and business services (-900), and financial activities (-100).
The U.S unemployment rate also saw improvement over the month, declining from 6.7% in March to 6.3% in April. The U.S rate one year ago was 7.5%.
Ohioans wishing to learn more about unemployment benefits or who are in search of a job can visit www.ohiomeansjobs.com. The information in this article and the monthly statistical analysis it is based upon are also available at http://jfs.ohio.gov/ocomm.