Staff report
news@wbcowqel.com
The good news is that Crawford County’s unemployment rate dropped 0.8 percent from February to March and is now at 7.2. The reality is the number shrank not because more people are working, but because fewer people are considered to be in the county’s labor pool and fewer still are on the unemployment rolls.
According to numbers released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, the county’s labor pool is numbered at 19,400 compared to 19,500 a month prior. Likewise, the current number considered unemployed in March in the system is 1,400 compared to 1,600 in February. The number of people working in the county remained steady at 18,000.
By comparison, the March unemployment rate for Crawford County in March of 2013 was 9.1 percent. Ohio’s current rate is 6.2.
In North Central Ohio, all of the counties surrounding also dropped. Currently the unemployment rate is 10.4 percent in Huron County, 6.3 percent in both Marion and Morrow counties, 8.8 in Richland and 6.1 percent in Seneca. Wyandot County at 5.6 percent is the lowest in the area which showed a net increase of 100 jobs from February to March.