Jobs are up following November dip

The numbers: Ohio added 7,000 jobs in December and posted another record level according to seasonally adjusted data released today by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS). November was the first month in over a year to show a job loss for the state; December’s job growth erased that dip and pushed the state to a new record of 5,661,100 jobs. Monthly job numbers are subject to revision.

“Job growth means more opportunities for Ohioans,” said Michael Shields, economist with Policy Matters Ohio. “To ensure that Ohioans can benefit from the opportunities, policymakers should pass measures to open doors to work for people currently sidelined because of arbitrary limits created by past involvement in the criminal legal system, as Senate Bill 198 would do by providing them with ID and training certifications. Instead of schemes to short circuit child labor protections — like Senate Bill 30 — to satisfy low-paying corporations’ desire for a cheap labor force, legislators should encourage a tight labor market.”

The details: Job growth was led by service providers, which added 8,400 jobs in the month, followed by government, which added 2,000. Goods producers shed 3,400 jobs as the loss of 4,100 construction jobs exceeded the gain of 700 in manufacturing.

The household survey: The separate household survey showed that 6,000 Ohioans lost or left jobs, as the number working fell from 5,597,000 in October to 5,591,000 in November. That included 3,000 people who left the workforce and 2,000 newly unemployed Ohioans who stayed in the workforce as job seekers (those numbers don’t sum to 6,000 due to rounding). Ohio’s unemployment rate rose 0.1 points to 3.7%, the same as the nation’s.

The household survey asks Ohioans about their work, and gives us the unemployment rate, while the business survey asks employers about the total number of jobs and their industries. This is the fourth month in a row that the household survey has shown a decrease in the number of Ohioans working, and the third time the surveys have diverged: Only last month did both report losses. The business survey is generally considered more reliable because it has a larger sample size, but the household survey can pick up new trends more quickly.

Annualized inflation rose from 3.1 to a still modest 3.4%.

“We’ll keep an eye on the household survey, but the overall jobs picture is strong, with new record jobs posted nearly every month and inflation now back to normal levels,” said Shields. “Less than four years after COVID-19 plunged Ohio into the deepest recession in a lifetime, that is a remarkable achievement: one we owe to the effective response of federal policymakers who sent historic levels of help to those who needed it.”

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