· July 22, 2011

Ohio’s Unemployment Increases: Kasich’s ‘Jobs Budget’ Killing Jobs

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services released Ohio’s unemployment numbers for June today. These numbers show the earliest impacts of Governor Kasich’s policy agenda, including his recently passed budget. The unemployment rate was 8.8 percent in June, an increase from 8.6 percent in May. This is the first time that the unemployment rate has increased since August of 2009, breaking a 22-month streak of unemployment holding steady or decreasing. The industry with the most significant job losses from the previous month was government, with local governments seeing the biggest losses of 8900 jobs. This likely reflects the first impact of Governor Kasich’s “Jobs Budget,” which contained severe cuts to local governments. Unfortunately as IO warned earlier this year, we are now well on our way to an anticipated loss of 51,000 jobs as a result of Kasich’s budget. Other items of note from the ODJFS release are as follows:

• The number of workers unemployed in Ohio in June increased to 517,000, up from 508,000 in May.
• Ohio saw an increase in nonfarm wage and salary employment, with an increase of 10,600 over the month, from the revised 5,095,000 in May to 5,105,600 in June. This includes an increase of 10,900 jobs in the leisure and hospitality industry, an industry that traditionally sees increases in the summer months.
• Local governments saw a loss of 8,900 jobs.
• The manufacturing sector saw a loss of 3,000 jobs.
• The construction industry saw an increase of 2,800 jobs, likely due to summer construction.
• The U.S. unemployment rate for June was 9.2 percent, up from 9.1 percent in May.

This data is seasonally adjusted.

You can download a copy of this report here.