Ohio unemployment rate down 10th month in a row

KANTELE FRANKO

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s unem­ploy­ment rate dropped in May for the 10th con­sec­u­tive month, upping the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign stakes in the bat­tle­ground state as Ohio’s rate reached its low­est point since Octo­ber 2008 while the national rate increased slightly, offi­cials said Friday.

The increase is good news for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and pro­vides fod­der for the argu­ment that his eco­nomic poli­cies are work­ing. The news is a chal­lenge for pre­sump­tive GOP can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney as he tries to per­suade Ohio vot­ers that things have been worse under Obama.

In the cen­ter is Repub­li­can Gov. John Kasich, who must fig­ure out a way to trum­pet Ohio’s econ­omy while being care­ful not to give Obama too much credit. Ana­lysts gen­er­ally agree that the national econ­omy has the biggest impact on the economies of indi­vid­ual states. But spe­cific indus­tries can alter that con­ven­tional wis­dom, and Ohio is cur­rently under­go­ing a boom in nat­ural gas explo­ration that holds the promise of hun­dreds or thou­sands of new jobs.

The state Depart­ment of Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices said sea­son­ally adjusted job­less­ness in Ohio decreased from 7.4 per­cent in April to 7.3 per­cent in May, and the state’s non­farm pay­rolls swelled by 19,600 com­pared with April’s figures.

The national jobs report was bleaker as the U.S. unem­ploy­ment rate increased from 8.1 per­cent in April to 8.2 per­cent in May. Only 69,000 jobs were added, the fewest in a year.

Kasich said it’s encour­ag­ing to see Ohioans return­ing to work but warned the state isn’t in the clear, despite get­ting good news in the face of national data height­en­ing fears that the econ­omy is sputtering.

“The best thing that can hap­pen is for Ohio to con­tinue pur­su­ing the jobs-friendly poli­cies that are tear­ing down bar­ri­ers to job cre­ation and for Wash­ing­ton to learn from our progress,” the Repub­li­can said in a state­ment Fri­day, echo­ing his sug­ges­tion the pre­vi­ous day that bipar­ti­san­ship at the state level could be an exam­ple for pol­i­cy­mak­ers in the nation’s capital.

The new job num­bers came out a day after the econ­omy took cen­ter stage in the pres­i­den­tial race, with Obama and Rom­ney speak­ing on the topic in oppo­site cor­ners of swing-state Ohio, each tak­ing aim at the other’s eco­nomic approach.

Democ­rats have cred­ited Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion with push­ing changes that they say have helped spur eco­nomic recovery.

The head of the Ohio Cham­ber of Com­merce said Fri­day he believes state poli­cies have had more effect than fed­eral poli­cies in push­ing Ohio’s eco­nomic envi­ron­ment in the right direction.

“When you plug a bud­get gap with­out rais­ing taxes, that sends a heck of a mes­sage to the busi­ness com­mu­nity,” cham­ber Pres­i­dent and CEO Andrew Doehrel said Fri­day, ref­er­enc­ing the two-year bud­get Kasich signed last year.

The num­ber of unem­ployed Ohio work­ers dropped by about 5,000, from 431,000 in April to 426,000 in May. Ohio has added more than 60,000 jobs so far this year, or more than twice the num­ber it added in all of last year, Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices spokesman Ben­jamin John­son said.

Last month, about 6,400 jobs were added in man­u­fac­tur­ing, which has been one of the sec­tors help­ing to drive the state’s eco­nomic recov­ery. The state also saw gains of 4,500 jobs in pro­fes­sional and busi­ness ser­vices and 4,300 jobs in edu­ca­tional and health services.

Each of those cat­e­gories has seen a sig­nif­i­cant increase in jobs over the past year. John­son said state offi­cials like to see job gains, even small ones, in such a vari­ety of sectors.

“The fact that employ­ment is increas­ing in most indus­tries in Ohio is help­ing to drive Ohio’s unem­ploy­ment rate below the national aver­age,” he said.

Com­pa­nies have added nearly 76,000 Ohio jobs since May 2011, when the state unem­ploy­ment rate was 8.8 percent.

But John­son noted there are still hun­dreds of thou­sands of Ohioans unemployed.

“This doesn’t change our over­all out­look of slow recov­ery in the com­ing months,” he said.

Posted by AP News on Jun 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.