Ohioans represented a large part of the increase in those needing unemployment benefits last week.

The U.S. Labor Department says first-time filings rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 last week. Ohio contributed to that with 2,984 new claims, among the largest nationally.

A spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Ben Johnson, said the state saw a “significant number of auto related layoffs,” but added that most of those were expected to be only one or two weeks. He declined to name those companies.

He also said there were also a “significant number” of school transportation worker claims, with the school year’s end.

Despite the temporary seasonal layoffs, the state’s auto industry remains healthy.

Honda of America Manufacturing Inc., which has 13,400 employees in Ohio that include 1,300 from the Dayton area, has cut production hours in the wake of Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but it has not laid off anyone, spokesman Ron Lietzke said.

“In fact, there’s a fair amount of hiring going on,” said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Center for Automotive Research.

“The biggest problem I’m seeing is the inability to find people with the right skills,” Cole said. He speculated that some auto suppliers may be cutting work temporarily in the wake of the Japan earthquake.

Lietzke said some Honda suppliers did lay workers off. “But that went on, frankly, quite earlier,” he noted.

Production in Honda’s Ohio plants will slowly ramp up in July, returning to “full production” in August, he said. He couldn’t give an exact date when full production will be reached.

According to Ohio’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice Act (WARN) notices, auto supplier Shiloh Industries Inc. in Mansfield plans to lay off 87 employees between Aug. 19 and Sept. 2. A Boeing Co. navigation systems repair site in Heath will lay off about 60 employees July 22. And a number of other companies with ties to the auto industry, such as CEVA Logistics, are planning layoffs, according to the Ohio’s WARN roster.