County, area jobless rates take big hikes

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The unemployment picture is apparently improving nationwide, but you’d never know it from looking at area jobless rates. The county rates are also at odds with statewide figures released last Friday (click here for a bigger map with more information).

While the U.S. unemployment rate declined to 8.3 percent in January, down from 8.5 percent in December 2011, and Ohio’s jobless rate apparently decreased from 7.9 percent in December to 7.7 percent in January, all local unemployment rates were higher — and several, including Van Wert County, were up dramatically.

The local trend seems to come from a disturbing migration of workers from the area, coupled with higher unemployment, according to unemployment information released Friday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The ODJFS figures show that Van Wert County, which was 50th among Ohio’s 88 counties in unemployment, lost 300 people from its workforce from December 2011 to January of this year (12,800 to 12,500). Unemployment was up 100, from 1,100 to 1,200, while the workforce declined from 14,000 in December to 13,800 in January. Those employed also dropped, from 12,800 in December to 12,500 in January. Those figures also led to an increase in the unemployment rate from 8.2 percent in December 2011 to 9.0 percent in January (click here for statewide civilian labor force estimates).

Other area counties showed similar results, with Allen County taking the biggest jump, from 8.3 percent in December to 9.5 percent in January — a 1.2 percent increase. Paulding County was also up significantly, increasing from 7.4 percent in December to 8.5 percent in January. Putnam County’s jobless rate rose from 7.0 percent in December to 8.1 percent in January, while Auglaize County’s unemployment rate increased to 7.0 percent, from 6.2 percent in December 2011.

Even Mercer County, which again had the lowest jobless rate in January, showed an increase, from 4.9 percent in December to 5.6 percent in January.

Statewide, Mercer and Auglaize counties were among those counties with jobless rates at 7.0 percent or lower. The others were Union County (6.7 percent), Holmes County (6.0 percent) and Delaware County (6.0 percent).

At the other end of the scale, Pike County in southeast Ohio had the highest unemployment rate at 16.6 percent, up from 14.8 percent in December, while the other counties above 13 percent were Ottawa County (15 percent, up from 12.8 percent in December), Meigs County (14.6 percent), Morgan County (14.3 percent), Adams County (14.2 percent), Huron County (13.8 percent) and Noble County (13.2 percent).

Moreover, county jobless figures would seem to contradict statewide figures released last Friday showing a decrease in the Ohio jobless rate from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent — a figure hard to justify when this past Friday’s report notes that unemployment rates increased in all of the state’s 88 counties.