Ohio employment
The seasonally adjusted Mass Layoff Statistics for Ohio showed increases from May to June in both the number of mass layoffs and the number of initial unemployment compensation claims filed. However, both were lower in June than they were at the same time last year. (According to the Bureau of labor Statistics, a mass layoff event occurs when at least 50 initial unemployment compensation claims are filed against an establishment within a five-week period.) Since the end of the last recession, both mass layoffs and initial claims have trended downward.
A breakdown by industry shows that construction, which accounts for 3.9% of Ohio’s employment, had the largest number of mass layoffs in 2004:IQ, more than one and a half times as many as manufacturing and more than triple that of any other industry. Natural resources and mining, wholesale trade, information, finance activities, education and health, leisure and hospitality,, other services, and public administration each suffered fewer than three mass layoffs for the quarter.
In most mass layoffs, the business does not actually close. (In 2004:IQ, 83% of the affected work sites in the U.S. continued to operate afterward.) While mass layoffs are bad for employment, business closures can spell disaster for a local economy. Predictably, more frequent and sometimes more severe closures occurred in and around Ohio’s metropolitan areas. The number of job losses from establishment closures follows the same trend. In 2003, Ashland, Athens, and Putnam were the only Ohio counties outside metropolitan areas that lost more than 300 jobs because of establishment closures.
[GRAPHICS OMITTED]
COPYRIGHT 2004 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
