Still, thousands of job openings have gone unfilled for months while a large share of working-age Ohioans sit on the labor market sidelines.
There were a total of 194,177 job openings posted online in Ohio for the 12 months ended in July — an increase of 13,265 from the same period a year earlier, according to the most recent data from The Conference Board. At the same time, statewide employment increased by 25,816 jobs, which means job openings outpaced hires by a ratio of nearly 8 to 1.
While some employers continue to complain that they can’t find enough qualified workers to fill open positions, experts say much of the slack in the labor market stems from the unmet demand for unskilled labor, which accounts for nearly a third (30.3 percent) of all job openings in Ohio, the Conference Board reports.
Those openings are in occupations such as sales, health care support and food preparation, jobs that pay wages less than $30,000 a year that are too low to support a family.
“We still have a fairly loose labor market, and there’s not enough competition to create an incentive for employers to spend more money on wages, especially in low-wage occupations,” said Greg Lawson, a labor market expert and policy analyst for the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions. “That creates a disincentive for some people to get back into the labor market.”
Ohio is down nearly 26,000 workers and job seekers over the past 12 months, including 18,235 residents who dropped out of the labor force last month alone.
However, Butler County is bucking the trend, where the labor force did the reverse and increased by 600 residents for the 12 months ended in August, according to the state jobs department.
Many of those who have dropped out of Ohio’s labor force were unskilled workers who once earned middle-class livings in manufacturing, trucking or secretarial work who have rejected jobs as janitors, cooks and home health-care workers, experts say.
“If somebody lost their job and can only replace a fraction of what they once earned, they may decide they can get by on disability, social security or a pension,” Lawson said. “I’m not saying that’s the only reason the labor force is declining, but it’s not unreasonable to conclude that some people are going to make that calculation.”
If people aren’t working or looking for work, they’re no longer counted as unemployed, which accounts for a large share of the dramatic decline in jobless rates. That’s a troubling trend at this stage of the economic recovery that began more than seven years ago, Lawson said.
“The unemployment rate is something I don’t even look at anymore as being that important,” Lawson said. “I really care a lot more about labor force participation because that really shows you the health of the market.
“If your unemployment rate is going down, and your labor force participation rate is going up at the same time, then things are moving in the right direction,” he said. “But we’ve seen this divergence where rates are going down at the same time labor force participation is going down, and that’s a problem because it gives people the impression that things are better than they really are.”
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