The unemployment rate is an estimate and could be revised in the future when more information is available. Only those who are not working and are looking for a job are counted; those who are retired, attending school, give up their job search, or aren’t working for another reason and don’t want to are not part of the number.
Additionally, residents who are working a part-time job and want more or better-paying work are not included in the economic indicator because they are employed.
Unemployment is also based on results of a phone survey of households, as well as the number of people receiving unemployment benefits and population growth.
Currently though, the 7,400 unemployed Butler County residents is the lowest estimate in over a decade for how many local people are jobless, according to state records.
Meanwhile, employment is growing among people who live in Butler County. Last month, approximately 181,000 people were working, just shy of the 181,500 working residents in December 2007, the start of the Great Recession. An additional 1,300 people gained jobs over the last year.
However, the measure of the local economy that didn’t improve year-over-year is the amount of people in the labor force. The total size of Butler County’s labor force — consisting of the 188,400 residents who are working or looking for work — was unchanged in October from the year before and remains 1.3 percent below pre-recession levels.
“We can’t say what the unemployment rate will do next,” said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for Ohio Job and Family Services. “We expect the economy will continue to strengthen and we’ve been saying that for a long time.”
It’s common for unemployment rates to fluctuate month-to-month due to multiple factors such as seasonal holiday hiring, Johnson said.
Numbers are revised every month, and a major annual revision released in March that takes into account tax records looks back six years to adjust data, Johnson said.
A group of Cincinnati economists that provide an outlook on the regional economy for the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber do not expect to see much change in the unemployment rates next year.
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