Ohio’s unemployment recovery among slowest in the nation | Ohio

(The Center Square) – Ohio continues to struggle to recover from new unemployment claims as the state showed the fifth largest number of claims filed last week compared to 2019 in the country, according to a recently released report.

The report, published by the personal finance website WalletHub, does show Ohio recovering in terms of unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic but at a significantly slower pace than most of the country.

“On the positive side, when compared to the mid-pandemic levels of the week of March 1, 2021, the unemployment claims in Ohio last week were lower by almost 91%. This is an indication that Ohio is recovering, though a lot slower than most other states,” WalletHub Analyst Jill Gonzalez said.

Ohio’s weekly unemployment claims increased by nearly 80% last week compared to the same week in 2019 and the 8.9% jump in weekly claims compared to the start of 2020 was the fifth largest increase in the nation.

“Ohio is one of the states where the number of unemployment claims was higher last week than before the pandemic. The state has the sixth slowest recovery. It registered an increase of over 78% in the number of unemployment insurance initial claims in the past week compared to the same week of 2019, and an almost 9% increase compared to the start of 2020,” Gonzalez said.

The state’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.3% in January, slightly lower than the 4.5% rate, according to figures recently released by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The January 2021 rate was 6%.

However, the number of employed workers in the state fell from 256,000 in December to 246,000 in January, continuing a trend of a decrease in employed workers by 95,000 over the past year.

The U.S. unemployment rate for January was 4%, up from 3.9% in December but lower than the 6.4% rate in January 2021.