The July 2013 Ohio By the Numbers report shows 8,600 private sector jobs gained, but last month’s small labor force increase was wiped out by a loss of over 11,000.

Ohio’s unemployment rate remained 7.2 percent in July. That continues to be below the national unemployment rate of 7.4 percent, however, the gap between the two rates has been narrowing for several months.

While Ohio’s labor force increased by over 16,000 since the beginning of 2013, these gains followed 32 consecutive months (between March 2010 and December 2012) of decreases–resulting in a total reduction to Ohio’s labor force of 158,000. Overall, the labor force in Ohio has shrunk by 222,000 from its peak of 5.97 million in December, 2006.

Despite recent labor force increases, July’s data seems to indicate that there will remain a good deal of volatility in those numbers. While future job growth and an increase in the unemployment rate could be expected as those re-entering the job market seek to find work, a static unemployment rate with a shrinking labor force would be indicative of a softening of Ohio’s recovery.

Overall highlights from the report:

• Ohio gained 8,600 private sector jobs in February, while also losing 3,300 government jobs;

• Ohio ranks 26th nationally in terms of private sector job growth since January 2010, growing at a 5.8 percent rate;
   
• Ohio currently ranks 47th for private sector job growth since January of 1990, growing at 8.1 percent (top ranked Utah grew 91.5 percent over the same time span).

Within individual industry sectors, Professional and Business Services, Education and Health Services, and Leisure and Hospitality continue to have more people employed today than in either 1990 or 2000. Meanwhile, Mining and Logging, Construction, Manufacturing, and Information sectors have fewer jobs today than in 1990 or 2000.

The report shows that Forced Union states (which includes Ohio and many of its neighbors–with the exceptions of Indiana, which became a worker freedom state in February of 2012, and Michigan, whose recent worker freedom law became effective at the end of March 2013) had a private sector growth rate far below worker freedom states.

Between 1990 and January of 2012, Worker Freedom states’ private sector jobs grew at a 38 percent rate vs. only 13 percent for Forced Union states (11.8 million vs. 8 million). Since Indiana became a Worker Freedom state in February 2012, Worker Freedom states’ private sector jobs grew at a rate of 3.1 percent vs. 2.2 percent for Forced Union states.