Ohio’s job market remained neutral in February, better than falling like the national figures, according to analysts.
The new numbers from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services bucked a trend of rising unemployment in the state that covered six months.
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Pennsylvania’s number of open jobs remains high while its number of workers in the labor force continues to shrink.
The trend, which has been ongoing for years, became worse when the pandemic hit in March 2020. The commonwealth has struggled to recover to its 2019-era labor force participation rate.
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Ohio continues to lag behind the rest of the United States in terms of employment according to a report released Friday by the state Department of Job and Family Services.
The data showed unemployment in the Buckeye State remained at 4.2 percent in November, the same as the prior month’s level and a half a point behind the nationwide 3.7-percent rate.
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While state officials touted their recent unemployment numbers as an all-time record, a state organization says a deeper analysis of the numbers shows a troubling undercurrent.
Georgia’s unemployment rate in March dropped to an all-time low of 3.1%, down from February’s revised rate of 3.2%, as the number of employed Georgians also hit a record high. Georgia is tied with Arkansas for the 16th lowest unemployment rate, according to an analysis from the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO).
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Minnesota teens are working less, while older Minnesotans are working more. That’s an alarming trend, according to Center of the American Experiment economist John Phelan. Phelan notes in a recent article that the labor force participation rate for Minnesotans aged 16 to 19 fell 19.1 percentage points between 1999 and 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the participation rate increased by 9.6 percent among Minnesotans aged 55 to 64 between the same years. “Not all youth absolutely need jobs, so they’re very sensitive to market conditions,” Oriane Casale, assistant director of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development’s labor market information office told MinnPost. “Basically, if they see their friends working and they can easily find a job, then they’ll work. Otherwise, they might not even look for a job,” she added. Phelan points out that these trends are expected to continue, according to the Minnesota State Demographic Center’s predictions. They suggest that the participation rate for those aged 16 to 19 is forecast to drop by another nine percent between 2020 and 2045, but will increase for all age groups above 45. “This doesn’t just pose a problem for Minnesota by exacerbating the participation…
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