Report Paints Dismal Employment Picture for Ohio
Posted September 04, 2011 in Press Releases
Associated Press
One of every 10 Ohioans lost a job over the past decade and workers
saw a higher drop in wages than any other state, according to a report being released
Sunday by liberal think tank Policy Matters Ohio.
The State of Working Ohio 2011 report says about 42 percent of those unemployed last year
had been without a job for more than six month, the highest level in 60 years of record
keeping. The number of Ohioans employed or looking for work in 2010 fell to about 65
percent, the fourth consecutive annual decline.
"We are hemorrhaging jobs," said Policy Matters Executive Director Amy Hanauer, who
wrote the report. "We need to be actually growing jobs to keep up with people entering the
workforce and instead we're losing employment. ... I only see that situation looking worse
because we're laying off public sector workers, and so that will just add to the ranks of the
unemployed."
The report says 594,000 Ohio jobs were lost from 2000 to 2010. The average annual
unemployment rate