Two years after COVID-19′s mass layoffs, Ohio still climbing towards past job numbers

Ohio, like the rest of the U.S, saw huge job losses in April 2020, the first full month after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state’s economy. Two years later the state is still catching up.

Ohio added 9,500 jobs in April, bringing the state’s total employment to 5,473,900 – yet still 136,000 jobs short of prepandemic levels in February 2020, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The unemployment rate was 4% last month.

At the worst point two years ago, Ohio reported 4,721,400 jobs and a 16.4% unemployment rate. The state lost 836,700 jobs in a single month, according to numbers from ODJFS and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ohio is 84,200 jobs short of where it was in March 2020, and 117,500 jobs short compared to three years ago in April 2019. The unemployment rate was also 4% three years ago.

Researchers with both Policy Matters Ohio and The Buckeye Institute said Ohio could regain all the jobs it lost during the pandemic by the end of the year. But both also pointed to growing inflation as something that could slow the recovery down.

Ohio’s April unemployment figures

The number of unemployed workers went down in Ohio, from 237,000 in March to 233,000 in April. The number of unemployed people has dropped by 321,000 in 12 months. The unemployment rate is down to 4%, form 5.6% in April 2021.

Ohio’s labor force participation rate is slightly up, at 61.8% in April versus 61.7% in March.

The state’s labor force, which is employed people and people looking for jobs, is at 5,706,900 people. About 192,000 less people are looking for work in Ohio than in Feb. 2020, according to ODJFS data.