Coshocton unemployment at 16.6 percent for May

COSHOCTON – The unemployment rate for Coshocton County rose dramatically for April, but local officials are still hopeful the rate will drop as more businesses open up. 

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported an unemployment rate of 16.6 percent in April for Coshocton County or about 1,200 more people on unemployment since March. The labor force has also shrunk by about 400 people between February and April. The March unemployment rate for the county was 8.1 percent and in February it was 6.9 percent.

The overall unemployment rate for Ohio for April was 16.8 percent. The highest ever in published state records by the Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics going back to 1976. Job and Family Services statistics show the state had more than 957,000 unemployed during the month of April, not seasonally adjusted. 

Across the state, eight counties had rates higher than 22 percent and eight had rates lower than 13 percent.

The lowest overall was Holmes County with 6.5 percent and the highest was Logan with 30.1 percent. Of other surrounding counties, Muskingum was 15.9 percent, Tuscarawas was at 15.3 percent, Guernsey was 14.9 percent, Licking was 13.3 percent and Knox was 12.4 percent.  

The national rate was 14.7 percent, the highest since the Great Depression. The only other time the national rate was over 10 percent was from Sept. 1982 to June 1983 where it ranged from 10.1 to 10.8 percent.

It’s hoped that the rate will drop locally and across the state and country for May as businesses open up and more people find jobs or are called back to work. With a few exceptions, most businesses will be reopened by June 1 with guidelines in place relating to social distancing and other safety precautions like wearing masks and using hand sanitizer. Several big companies are also still hiring because of business going up during the pandemic such as Walmart, Amazon and Purrell based in Akron. 

A clear picture on the lasting impact of the pandemic on unemployment rates across the state probably won’t happen until after June. Lynn Jacobs, Workforce Administrator of Ohio Means Jobs of Coshocton County, previously said he hopes something close to normal with the workforce numbers might be realized by December.

Ohio Job and Family Services Director Kimberly Hall testified before the Ohio House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday about the scope of unemployment in the state and her organization's response. 

"Prior to the pandemic" she told the committee, "unemployment claims in Ohio were at their lowest in decades. That literally changed overnight."

Hall testified that on Saturday, March 14, 797 unemployment applications were filed. The next day, when the first round of closures from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's stay-at-home order began, almost 12,000 claims were filed. 

The following Monday, more than 36,000 were filed. Between Saturday March 14th and Saturday March 21, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services saw jobless claims increase nearly 2,700 percent, according to a release from ODJFS outlining Hall's testimony. Jobless claims rose from just over 7,000 a week to more than 196,000. 

"That number kept rising for three more weeks and was at more than 1.2 million as of May 23. Approximately 17 percent of Ohio’s civilian labor force has applied for unemployment benefits over the last two months. In seven weeks, our unemployment office received more applications than in the previous three years combined," Hall told the committee.