Ohio to decline even more after Chevy Cruze lays off 1,500 at Lordstown

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics and ODJFS released employment and unemployment data for Ohio on Friday. Even though the numbers look good in comparison to previous months' figures, the speed of job growth in Ohio remains well below the USA national average, Ohio's top jobs number analyst reports.

The Ohio Statehouse Rotunda

" Ohio extended its lengthy sub-par job growth streak to 64 consecutive months with Ohio's job growth below the USA national average," George Zeller wrote today. "The March 2017 year over year Ohio job growth rate is 1.17%, while the USA job growth rate during the same period is 1.55%," Zeller noted, adding, "This horrible sub-par job growth streak in Ohio has now been every month for five full years and four additional months."

Ohio To Decline Even More

Ohio's economic slide down hill over the decades is well documented. Ohio Gov. John Kasich lands lots of newspaper ink for going out of state to pursue a favorite fantasy that he'll be elected president in 2020.

Kasich got shellacked bigly by Donald Trump in 2016. Ohio's term-limited, lame-duck governor's name always escape mention when the state comes up short on the jobs front, as it has each month for more than five years. Kasich, a former Wall Street banker who worked for Lehman Brothers before it crashed, promised to "move the needle" on jobs if elected in 2010. He's has moved the needle, but mostly in the wrong direction.

Poor, Slow And Fewer Jobs Now Than In 1980.

As Zeller observes, during 2017 Ohio gained just 32,200 jobs, the weakest annual year for job growth in Ohio since the end of the "Great Recession."  Ohio's job trend, he says, is most closely associated with trends in Manufacturing and Government employment. "During March, Ohio gained 1,600 mainly high wage Durable Goods Manufacturing jobs. In contrast to most months during 2017, Ohio also gained 2,200 Government jobs, including 1,900 Local Government jobs, 200 State Government jobs, and 100 Federal Government jobs," he says.

Poor, slow and fewer jobs than in 1980 isn't what one Ohio Republican leader saw in today's number. Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof (R-Medina) prefered to focus on the figure of 501,000 new private sector jobs created since 2011, as if that's an impressive number when it's not. Obhof ignores the fact that the Buckeye State today has fewer jobs than it did in 1980 and has yet to recover from the recessions of 2000 and 2007.

"We work diligently to not only create an environment of possibilities for Ohio's job creators but also to ensure Ohioans from all backgrounds are prepared to take advantage of those opportunities," Obhof said in a statement Friday.

"We've done this through creating a jobs-friendly business environment, developing a jobs-ready workforce and empowering Ohio's small businesses, the backbone of our economy," he said, adding, "While this is an important milestone that shows Ohio's policies are working, we have much more to do, and we will continue to build on this progress."

The John Glenn School of Public Affairs released a report recently on Ohio's decline called "Toward a New Ohio." Co-authors William Shkurti and Fran Stewart offered lots of history and perspective along with a dozen questions the 2018 class of governor hopefuls should have to answer if only Ohio media would ask them, instead of asking questions based on the daily ping-pong of social-media side issues that replace more substantive ones.

Cruze Lay Offs Will Also Lay Off Hundreds More In Supply Chain

When I asked Zeller to noodle on the consequences for Chevy Cruze's announcement that it will lay off 1,500 jobs at its Lordstown plant, he offered some key observations you won't find any other Ohio media reporting on, since their focus on these monthly statistics mostly focus on the unemployment rate, which offers little to no understanding on the numbers.

Zeller tells me that the Ohio job trend is most closely associated with trends in Manufacturing and Government employment. He then says that during March, Ohio gained 1,600 mainly high wage Durable Goods Manufacturing jobs as well as gaining 2,200 Government jobs, including 1,900 Local Government jobs, 200 State Government jobs, and 100 Federal Government jobs.

"The odds of continued growth in Durable Goods Manufacturing will decline in the short run future, as a result of the already announced mass layoffs at Lordstown," Zeller says. He adds, "In addition to those layoffs, there will be additional declines in the hundreds by contractors who provide parts for the Cruise."

It is likely, he says, that Durable Goods Manufacturing will turn negative during next month's April data, although that might extend to May, depending on the actual date of the mass layoffs in Trumbull and surrounding counties.

The other variable he mentions, is that it looks like a "decline in Federal Government is likely, given day to day chaos in Washington with the federal appropriations process." Moreover, cuts made by the Ohio legislature are also relevant.

"This month's and last month's gains in Local Government are locally financed, not financed by the state. There are limits to what the cities, counties, townships, and school districts can spend, given the large cuts that they took at the legislature," he warns.