Employment outlook for Ohio
09/06/09
Ohio’s job market is fast declining as employment is forever slackening and unemployment benefit claims grow in number. Though most US states have had to suffer from the backlash of the economic slowdown in terms of job cuts and lower wages and a general decline in the job market on the whole, there are still plenty of opportunities that can be exploited by enterprising unemployed people.
The job scenario in Ohio is not as bad as it is made out to be. While states like Mississippi and South Carolina are reeling under the pressure of the economic downslide with very high unemployment rates to boast of, Ohio has been projecting relatively lower unemployment rates. However it is to be noted that Ohio and Michigan are the only two states that have lost more jobs since the last recession that passed 6 years ago. Ohio has lost almost 1.4% of the total jobs since then.
Traditionally Ohio has witnessed large scale employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector, followed by health care, social assistance and retail trade. The growth projection for the job market as envisioned by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services come up with more realistic statistics. The number of jobs according to earlier projections was set to grow to over 6.3 million.
The chief contributors to this growth were expected to be manufacturing and natural resource sectors. But these industries have been steadily losing employment opportunities and have been expelling employees. The only exception in the category being the construction industry. The slump in the real estate business is set to affect this industry as well in the long run if things don’t turn around quickly enough. The best bet as of now is the education, healthcare and professional and business service industries.
There would never be a dearth for employment in the service sector as long as there are people around who require those services. These sectors would grow irrespective of the slump in the economy or at east would not decline. The manufacturing industry is where the woes lie and there is least likelihood of a job seeker finding employment in that sector. The number of jobs lost in the manufacturing sector has been grotesquely huge compared to the rest of the nation.
A quick analysis on the kind of jobs that are popular and for which the maximum number of job opening are available would list jobs like cashiers, retail sales persons, jobs in the food industry including chefs, cooks, waiters and waitresses. There are also enough job openings in the service sector for nurses, customer service representatives, clerks and other medium to lower end job profiles. The manufacturing and financial sectors compose the largest contributors to Ohio’s GDP.
The majority of the population is employed in the trade/transportation/utilities sector which makes for almost 20% of the state’s total workforce. The next major employment generating sector is healthcare and education followed by the government jobs and manufacturing industry respectively. The top employer in terms of the number of persons employed for Ohio is Wal-Mart.
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