Ohio’s streak of record unemployment has ended

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Ohio’s unemployment hot streak cooled slightly in August, with the unemployment rate increasing from 3.3% in July to 3.4% in August.

Ohio has been hitting records since April, when the state’s unemployment rate hit 3.7% for the first time since 1976, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking state data that way. The unemployment rate continued to decline until it reached 3.3% in July.

The rate of 3.4% is still a historical low. Ohio’s unemployment rate was 4.1% in August 2022 and 4.9% in August 2021.

The state also saw a record number of jobs, with total employment reaching 5,639,000 in August, according to a report from the Ohio Department of Jobs and Families. Ohio added 3,500 jobs in August, but fewer than previously reported in July.

Ohio has the largest number of jobs since at least 1990, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the number in this way.

The job count is not the number of people working, but the number of jobs filled in Ohio, full time or part time. A person working two part-time jobs, for example, counts as two jobs.

The state now has 28,600 more jobs than in February 2020, just before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to massive job losses.

Ohio lost 884,200 jobs and the unemployment rate soared to 16.8% as the COVID-19 pandemic brought the economy to a standstill.

The number of unemployed people in August was 196,000 against 194,000 in July.

Part of the reason for the low unemployment rate is a smaller labor force, which is a measure of the number of working-age Ohioans who are working or looking for work. Ohio’s labor force currently stands at 5,820,000.

Ohio is still down 97,000 people from February 2020. This number has been increasing since the end of last year.

The employment rate in August was 62.1% and was unchanged from July.