(The Center Square) – Ohio’s job market appears to be resilient in the face of higher gasoline prices, a conflict in Iran and other potentially disruptive events across the world.
Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped in April to 3.9%, a 0.2 percentage point fall from March’s 4.1 %, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
The number of nonagricultural jobs increased by 7.800, going from 5.679 million in March to 5.687 in April.
There were gains in manufacturing jobs and construction, offsetting drops in mining and logging, according to the state’s latest numbers.
The private service sector employment increased by 1,900 with gains in leisure and hospitality, information ; trade, transportation and utilities.
“Part of the drop in unemployment could be because workers stopped looking for jobs,” Rea S. Hederman Jr., executive director of the Economic Research Center and vice president of policy at the non-profit The Buckeye Institute, said in a statement. “Even though more Ohioans exited the job market in April, private sector jobs were added, more than offsetting the slight downward revision in the number of private-sector jobs added in March.”
The state’s labor participation rate has been slowly declining for two decades, Hederman said.
“While numerous factors contribute to this decline, it is impossible to deny that the expansion of the social welfare state disincentivizes work,” he said.
Hederman praised new federal work requirements for some recipients of Medicaid and food stamps.
“Ohio needs to reform and fix its safety-net programs to incentivize work and encourage more workers – particularly healthy adults – to enter the job market,” he said. “Getting more Ohioans back to work can increase incomes, improve the job market overall, save taxpayer dollars – a win, win, win for Ohio.”
The number of unemployed workers in Ohio had been dropping steadily. In April there were 232,000 unemployed workers, down from 243,000 in March.
Over the last 12 months, the number has declined by 52,000, according to the state.
This April’s unemployment rate was 0.9 percentage points lower than the 4 .8% percent in April 2025, the state said.
The national unemployment rate, however, was unchanged in April at 4.3%. It was up slightly from 4.2 percent a year earlier.
