Statewide, Ohio’s unemployment rate dipped to 4.6 percent, down .1 percent from January, mirroring a national trend. The U.S. unemployment rate for February was 3.8 percent down from 4 percent in January, according to the Ohio DJFS.
The latest numbers are good for Clark County’s workforce, said Bill LaFayette, an economist and owner of Regionomics, a Columbus-based economics and workforce consulting firm.
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LaFayette said the sharp percentage drop from January to February is because the county’s monthly updates from the Ohio DJFS are not adjusted to account for seasonal patterns that include summer hiring, major holiday hiring and school schedules.
The U.S. figures and state figures are adjusted for those factors.
If seasonal factors were taken into account, LaFayette said Clark County’ unemployment rate would be closer to 4.5 percent for January and 4.1 percent for February.
LaFayette said even with seasonally adjusted numbers, Clark County’s unemployment rate drop was still good.
“So now that we know the rate has taken a pretty good drop, now we have to think about ‘why did it go down?’” LaFayette said. “There are two reasons why unemployment could go down.”
The first reason he said, is because the unemployment rate is found by dividing the amount of people who live in an area by the amount of people who are working or looking for work in the same area.
“So the unemployment rate can decline because you have more people working, or more people looking for work,” LaFayette said.
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The second reason the rate could drop is because of an increase in the labor force, he said.
“When the labor force goes up, you see an increase in employment,” LaFayette said.
According to the Ohio DJFS data, Clark County had a labor force of 63,800 in February, up from 63,500 in January.
In Champaign County, Marcia Bailey, Director of the Champaign Economic Partnership (CEP), said the continuous decrease in the unemployment rate could be due to job growth.
“We have continuously seen our employers adding jobs every month,” Bailey said. “I think we have seen a lot of job growth in our manufacturing industry as well agricultural, but our health care industry is also growing.”
Bailey said the CEP also partners with schools and universities in the Champaign area to help advertise job fairs.
“At our last job fair we had over 61 job applicants apply to attend,” Bailey said. “We hope these job fairs help the public see career options that are available to them.”
Unemployment numbers:
Clark County
February- 4.6
January- 5.4
December- 4.8
Champaign County
February- 3.8
January- 4.5
December- 4.1
Source: Ohio Department of Job and Family Service
The Springfield News-Sun is committed to covering changes to employment and the economy in Clark and Champaign Counties.
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