Employment

The past year has been very difficult for the nation and Ohio. Ohio’s unemployment rate has been consistently among the highest in the nation. Hardest hit has been Manufacturing. Even the education and health services sector, the state’s strongest sector, has been underperforming.

However, much of Ohio’s current difficulties started long before the current recession. Employment growth began to fall below the national average in the mid 1990s. Understanding Ohio’s economic past, as well as its current situation, are key to developing workforce strategies for tomorrow.

Some core realities:

• Ohio has not fully recovered to pre-2001 recession employment levels
• Ohio’s workforce is older compared to decades past and the trend will continue for the foreseeable future.
• Ohio’s population is expected to remain well under the growth patterns of other areas of the country over the next decade or more.
• The fundamental structure and organization of manufacturing has changed forever yet manufacturing remains critical as a value-added component and driver for the economy.
• The modern economy is built less on physical structures and manual labor and increasingly on knowledge, communication, shared professional communities and business linkages. Education will become increasingly more important.

The following the percentage of employeed persons compared to the civilian labor force estimates for West Central Ohio, Ohio and the United States.