Ohio and U.S. Employment Situation (Seasonally Adjusted)

Ohio's unemployment rate was 13.7% in May 2020, down from a revised 17.6% in April. Ohio’s nonagricultural wage and salary employment increased 127,100 over the month, from a revised 4,704,000 in April to 4,831,100 in May 2020.

The number of workers unemployed in Ohio in May was 788,000, down 211,000 from 999,000 in April. The number of unemployed has increased by 551,000 in the past 12 months from 237,000. The May unemployment rate for Ohio increased from 4.1% in May 2019.

The U.S. unemployment rate for May was 13.3%, down from 14.7% in April, and up from 3.6% in May 2019.

Total Nonagricultural Wage and Salary Employment (Seasonally Adjusted)

Ohio’s nonagricultural wage and salary employment increased 127,100 over the month, from a revised 4,704,000 in April to 4,831,100 in May, according to the latest business establishment survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor (Bureau of Labor Statistics) in cooperation with ODJFS.

Employment in goods-producing industries, at 840,000, increased 38,400 over the month with gains in construction (+19,200), manufacturing (+19,000), and mining and logging (+200). The private service-providing sector, at 3,274,500 increased 112,000 as gains in leisure and hospitality (+36,600), trade, transportation, and utilities (+31,400), educational and health services (+17,000), other services (+13,900), professional and business services (+11,900), and financial activities (+2,000) surpassed losses in information (-800). Government employment, at 716,600, decreased 23,300 with losses in local (-21,300) and state (-2,000) government. Federal government employment did not change over the month.

From May 2019 to May 2020, nonagricultural wage and salary employment decreased 757,600. Employment in goods-producing industries decreased 100,800. Manufacturing lost 80,900 jobs with losses in durable goods (-73,900) and nondurable goods (-7,000). Construction decreased 18,100 jobs and mining and logging lost 1,800 jobs. Employment in the private service-providing sector decreased 586,000 with losses in leisure and hospitality (-253,300), professional and business services (-93,500), educational and health services (-91,700), trade, transportation, and utilities (-91,100), other services (-36,500), financial activities (-14,000), and information (-5,900). Government employment decreased 70,800 as losses in local (-57,600) and state (-13,400) government outpaced gains in federal government (+200).

EDITOR’S NOTE: All data cited are produced in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor. Data sources include the Current Population Survey (U.S. data), Current Employment Statistics Program (nonagricultural wage and salary employment data), and Local Area Unemployment Statistics Program (Ohio unemployment rates). More complete listings of the data appear in the monthly Ohio Labor Market Review. Unemployment rates for all Ohio counties, as well as cities with populations of 50,000 or more, are presented in the monthly ODJFS Civilian Labor Force Estimates publication. Updated statewide historical data may be obtained through the OhioLMI app, which is available for free on mobile devices through the App Store or Google Play. Ohioans can access tens of thousands of job openings, for positions ranging from file clerks to CEOs, at http://ohiomeansjobs.com.

News release dates
A calendar of 2020 release dates is available online at https://ohiolmi.com/Home/Events. County, city, and metropolitan area unemployment rates for May 2020 will be posted online at https://ohiolmi.com on Tuesday, June 23. June 2020 unemployment rates and nonagricultural wage and salary data for Ohio will be released by ODJFS on Friday, July 17, 2020. This information and the monthly statistical summaries it is based on are also available at https://jfs.ohio.gov/ocomm.

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