Ohio Unemployment

Ohio’s unemployment rate finished the year with its ninth consecutive decline in December as a drop in payroll was outpaced by a larger fall in job-seekers.

The state Department of Job and Family Services said Friday that Ohio’s jobless rate hit a seasonally adjusted 9.6 percent in December. That’s down from 9.8 percent in November and more than a percentage point below the 10.8 percent jobless rate seen a year ago.

Over the month, nonfarm payroll dropped by more than 9,000 jobs to hit 5 million workers. That’s largely on a 7,300-job decline in Ohio’s goods-producing sector, which saw declines in construction and manufacturing. The much-larger service sector only lost 1,300 jobs over the month.

The ranks of those unemployed and actively seeking work, meanwhile, fell by 13,000 to hit 567,000, marking the lowest number of unemployed Ohioans in nearly two years.

County and city-level unemployment data are set to be released Tuesday. January statistics will be released March 4.