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Ohio jobless rate jumps to 10.8 percent

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By William Hershey , Staff Writer Updated 12:55 PM Friday, June 19, 2009

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s unemployment rate shot up to 10.8 percent in May, a jump from the 10.2 percent jobless rate in April and the highest monthly rate in more than 25 years.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services released the May rate on Friday, June 19.

Robert Brouse, 42, is among those working to find work.

He took a buyout from an hourly position at Delphi in January 2007, and now, more than two years later, finds himself studying for his second associate’s degree and at an end to his $140,000 in buyout funds.

“We’re on the edge,” the Centerville resident and father of two said Friday.

Though he has manufacturing experience and has studied computer engineering at Wright State University, he’s finding that IT employers want working experience in the field, not simply education.

“The ads are just saying that right away,” Brouse said. “They want two- to five-years experience.”

In an intensive job search since March, Brouse has had three face-to-face interviews and two phone interviews.

“Chances are this is not the end of the line,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics in Pepper Pike, a Cleveland suburb. “We haven’t seen the peak yet.”

While it’s difficult to predict, Mayland said the rate could peak at about 12 percent in July before starting to decline.

ODJFS Director Douglas Lumpkin said in a press release that employment gains in service-producing industries were mostly offset by continued losses in manufacturing. Those manufacturing losses will continue in Ohio with GM layoffs and ripple effects from those layoffs, said Mayland.

The state’s unemployment rate has not been this high since a 10.9 percent rate in October of 1983. The May unemployment rate was up from 6.3 percent in May 2008.

The number of unemployed workers in Ohio in May was 646,000, up from 609,000 in April.

During the past 12 months, the number of unemployed has gone up by 268,000 from 378,000.

The national unemployment rate for May was 9.4 percent, up from 8.9 percent in April.

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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