Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate fell sharply in March, according to data released today by the
Ohio Department of Job and Family Services
(ODJFS).
Michael Jones, research director at the University of Cincinnati Economics Center, says the numbers, while positive, were a slowdown from previous months. “The punchline is that growth is improving, but the rate of growth is slowing down,” he says. “But up is good.”
Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 7.5 percent in March, down from a revised 7.9 percent in February and 8 percent in March 2012. The lower unemployment rate coincided with other positive factors: a larger civilian labor force, more people employed and less people unemployed.
Hamilton County’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate also dropped from 7.2 percent to 6.9 percent, and Greater Cincinnati’s rate dropped from 7.5 percent to 7.2 percent.
Jones attributes most of the drop to the region’s strong growth in health care services, but manufacturing has also played a role. “Our manufacturing has come back stronger than the nation,” he says.
In Ohio, the seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate fell from 7.8 percent in February to 7.3 percent in March. The U.S. seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate also fell, from 8.1 percent to 7.6 percent.
But seasonally adjusted numbers for Ohio and the nation were widely considered weak, particularly in comparison to previous months.
Job numbers at the state and national levels are typically adjusted for seasonal factors, but local numbers are not.
Unemployment numbers are collected through a household survey. The unemployment rate measures the amount of people employed relative to the civilian labor force, which accounts for the amount of people looking for jobs and people employed. Since the numbers are obtained through surveys, they are often revised in later months.
