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Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

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Ohio labor and unemployment updates now available

Jan. 10, 2022
Picture of a red tractor plowing a field.

What does the Ohio unemployment rate mean and how is it calculated? Do unemployment benefits play a role in keeping people unemployed? Where did all the workers go and what will the future hold? You can find answers to these questions and more in two new reports – one on the state of employment in the agricultural and food sectors, and the other on the state of unemployment in Ohio.

Where are the workers at the end of 2021? An agricultural and food sector employment update

Authored by Assistant Professor Margaret Jodlowski, this report presents statistics on the current level of employment in two broad sections of the agricultural product value chain: food processing and food service, with a brief examination of the much smaller on-farm labor market. In addition, it provides a summary of the factors that are either pushing people out of employment in this sector, or are pulling people towards alternative uses of their time.

Unemployment in Ohio at the end of 2021

Authored by Assistant Professors Margaret Jodlowski and Zoë Plakias, this report discusses changes in the unemployment rate in Ohio, broken down by important categories:

  • Unemployment rate over time
  • Unemployment rate by metro versus non-metro counties in Ohio
  • Unemployment by sector, nationally.

The report contains a brief discussion of what the unemployment rate means and how it is calculated, with a particular emphasis on who is not captured by this metric. Finally, the role unemployment benefits play in keeping people unemployed has long been an open question, and the pandemic relief payments, which ended in about half the states in June or July 2021 and the other half in September 2021, provide a useful way to examine that question. This examination is presented at the end of the report.

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