Report: Ohio still has fewer jobs than it had in 1980 as Kasich extends sub-par job growth to 63 straight months

The Dayton Daily News reported Friday that AES Ohio Generation plans to lay off approximately 370 workers in Aberdeen and Manchester at two power plants. Once known as Dayton Power & Light, the news of jobs cuts isn't all that unusual.

The power plant job loss became public on the same day that job growth numbers show Ohio under Gov. John R. Kasich has extended his sub-par growth streak, relative to the national job creation average, to 63 consecutive months.

Kasich Can't Get The Jobs Done

John Kasich on Election Night 2010
promised to "move the needle" on jobs.

Ohio's preeminent jobs number cruncher, George Zeller of Cleveland, reported a startling finding on Buckeye State jobs. Revisions to 2017 data "find that Ohio's job growth during 2017 was precisely zero ... Thus, 2017 resulted in no recovery at all in Ohio, the only such year since the end of the "Great Recession," Zeller told Spinelli On assignment today via email.

Included in today's dreary news on jobs, Zeller notes that the year over year job growth rate (not seasonally adjusted) in Ohio fell from 0.52 percent in January to 0.03 percent or almost zero in February. Zeller offers some perspective, saying that the year over year USA job growth rate (also not seasonally adjusted) rose from 0.45 percent in January to 0.57 percent in February.

"Thus, Ohio's job growth rate of 0.03% in February is well below the 1.57% USA job growth rate in February," he concludes, adding, "February 2018 is the 63rd consecutive month when Ohio's job growth rate has been below the USA national average. This lengthy sub-par job growth streak now extends to five full years and three additional months. This is not a one month fluke, since the below average job growth has been continuous for every month during more than the last five years.

Stunningly, Ohio still has fewer jobs than it had in 1980.

Gov. Kasich, who spends more time out of state than in, as he courts media for more attention to his fabled run for president in 2020, is planning a celebration when the state hits the half-million jobs mark. Kasich has no appreciation for how's he's really doing, choosing instead to fixate on a number, that while it sounds impressive, is really underwhelming, especially for a candidate who promised to be a jobs governor when elected in 2010.

Population Problems

Adding to Ohio's jobs problem is its chronic stagnant population problem. New estimates can be read to suggest that Ohio might be stabilizing population loss with growth, but barely so. Ohio had the largest net migration and smallest domestic migration loss in more than seven years, one report showed, noting more than 36,055 people came to the state than left from July 1, 2016, to July 1, 2017.

The numbers are very small and likely won't prevent the state from losing another congressional district or two when the 2020 census is finished, and lawmakers redraw legislative boundaries to reflect population gain or loss. Ohio once had 25 Electoral College votes. That number is down to 18 currently, and could go lower at 2020, further reducing its political clout in Washington, which in turns means reducing its take of federal tax dollars on a wide variety of programs.