Despite the setbacks, local officials said there has been a flurry of recent, positive economic development news, and 2014 is shaping up to be a bounce-back year for the region.
“You’ve had all of these positive announcements coming out, but they are under development, and they just haven’t come to fruition yet,” said Chris Kershner, the vice president of Public Policy & Economic Development for the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. “Once those announcements really come to fruition, you’re going to see us outpacing a lot of our counterparts across the state and even the country.”
In December, nonfarm employment in the Dayton metro area decreased 0.2 percent to 375,600 workers, according to seasonally adjusted labor data. The Dayton metro area includes Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Preble counties.
The job losses came after local payrolls increased by 1,000 workers in November.
Losing manufacturing jobs
Last year, local employment tended to fluctuate every few months between sizable losses and gains.
Between December 2012 and December 2013, manufacturing employment in the Dayton region declined by 2.2 percent, while the state’s manufacturing payrolls grew by 0.7 percent, according to data that was not seasonally adjusted.
Dayton’s manufacturers do not seem to be experiencing the same increase in demand for their products as companies located elsewhere in the state, said William Even, an economics professor at Miami University.
“Manufacturing in Dayton is not keeping pace with manufacturing in Ohio,” Even said.
About one in six jobs in the region are in the public sector, which has been shedding workers year-over-year since 2011, the data show.
In December, Dayton’s unemployment rate fell to 6.8 percent, the lowest level in a year. But it decreased because the labor force shrank, as unemployed workers gave up looking for work.
Last month, there were 397,600 people in the Dayton area’s labor force, which was the lowest total since at least January 1983, according to labor data that was not seasonally adjusted.
The unemployment rate drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities, because it does not include “missing workers,” who are neither employed nor looking for work because of scarce job openings, according to the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
New jobs in pipeline
But local development officials said the labor data does not tell the full story of the region’s economy. Some major projects are planned or in the pipeline that should put many people back to work.
“Just because we didn’t have job gains in December doesn’t mean we won’t blow it out of the water here in the future,” said Kershner, with the Dayton chamber. “I know there are some great things on the horizon for the Dayton region.”
Fuyao, a Chinese auto glass maker, announced this month it plans to bring at least 800 jobs to the former General Motors plant in Moraine in the coming years.
ProLogis, a California developer, is building a $90 million, 1.8 million-square-foot distribution center in Union. The unidentified tenant is expected to hire about 1,300 workers. The project is expected to be completed later this year.
Meijer announced on Monday that it will build a dairy production facility in Tipp City, which will create 100 new jobs.
“We have seen a lot of success recently with new job commitments from companies like Meijer, GE EPISCenter, Fuyao, Midmark, Ferguson, Independent Can, Polaris, Cole Taylor Mortgage, and many others,” said David Burrows Jr., director of economic development programs with the Dayton Development Coalition.
Employment in the Cincinnati-Middletown metro area declined by 0.4 percent in December, or 4,300 jobs, seasonally adjusted data show. The Springfield metro area (Clark County) added a modest 200 jobs last month, or an increase of 0.4 percent.
Springfield has added 1,100 jobs in the last two years (+2.2 percent), while Cincinnati-Middletown has gained 11,400 jobs (+1.1 percent).
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