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.
Ohio’s non-farm sectors added a total of 5,500 last month — 4,400 of them in the private sector — bringing the state’s total non-agricultural employed population to 5,509,900. But with those modest job gains came the unsettling news that Ohio’s labor-force participation rate declined from 61.5 percent from the end of October to 61.3 percent at the end of November. Labor-force participation statewide is also down a fifth of a point since November 2021.
Nationwide, the percentage of the population looking for work shrunk, albeit to a lesser extent, from 62.2 percent in October to 62.1 percent in November. The national labor-participation rate nevertheless remains one-fifth of a point higher than its November 2021 level.
The Columbus-based Buckeye Institute, a center-right think tank, found much to lament in the jobs update, but its vice president of policy Rea S. Hederman Jr. said in a statement some hopeful signs are apparent. Even as the manufacturing sector lost 5,800 positions since October, service industries such as recreation, healthcare arts and entertainment added 5,300 jobs.
Still, he noted, Ohio would need to add about 70,000 net positions to regain the entire economic loss suffered since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. Prospects that such a recovery will happen quickly look doubtful, with Federal Reserve staff economists now suggesting there is a 50-percent chance the U.S. will reenter a recession at some point next year.
Hederman suggested there is much Ohio can do to improve its economic potential by moving state policy in a free-market direction and said Governor Mike DeWine (R) can take an important next step by signing a recently passed bill to honor out-of-state professional licenses.
“If Governor Mike DeWine signs into law occupational licensing recognition, Ohio can attract more workers and families to the Buckeye State, as happened in Arizona after it adopted similar reforms,” Hederman said. “While these reforms won’t address all of Ohio’s challenges, they are an integral component to modernizing Ohio’s outdated economic system.”
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Ohio Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
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