MOUNT VERNON — Unemployment in Knox County fell sharply during the month of February, according to a state report released Tuesday.
The county’s unemployment rate went from 6.5 percent in January to 5.8 percent in February, according to an Ohio Department of Job & Family Services report. The corresponding rate for February 2007 was 5.5 percent.
The ODJFS estimates the county labor force to be 30,500 with 1,800 unemployed individuals. Roger Shooter, director of the Knox County Department of Job & Family Services, said, despite the apparant decrease, he considers an unemployment rate over 5 percent to be a negative. He said the county is still in need of more manufacturing jobs and pointed to recent data that indicated increases in the number of people in the county receiving food stamps which shows that even people who work are often unable to make ends meet.
Among the state’s 88 counties, the February 2008 unemployment rate ranged from a low of 4.0 percent in Delaware County to a high of 11.1 percent in Morgan County. Rates decreased in 76 counties. The county unemployment information is not seasonally adjusted; it does not take into account regular seasonal trends such as weather. Seasonally adjusted figures, such as state and national unemployment rates, are created to remove noneconomic factors such as the weather.
The ODJFS reports that the Ohio unemployment rate was 5.3 in February, down from 5.5. percent in January, but an estimated 11,600 jobs were lost during the month, bringing the labor force to 5,420,600 for February. The biggest reduction was in the service-providing industries at 9,700.
“Ohio’s labor market indicators showed mixed results in February,” ODJFS Director Helen Jones-Kelley said. “News that the unemployment rate declined slightly must be tempered by the fact that total unemployment in both goods-producing and service-providing industries went up.”
Goods-producing industries lost 1,900 jobs, and, winter weather caused a decline of 2,300 jobs in construction. Educational and health services fell 2,500; leisure and hospitality dropped by 1,900.
The U.S. unemployment rate for February was 4.8 percent, down from 4.9 percent in January.
All labor statistics are estimates and do not correspond to the actual number of employed and unemployed in the labor force of the county, state or nation. These figures fail to factor in groups such as the self-employed or the unemployed who have become discouraged and have stopped looking for work.
