Retail’s troubles beginning to add up

Tough times for retailers and a mild winter led to job losses in Ohio in March.

Ohio’s jobless rate held steady at 5.1 percent in March, but employers cut 4,100 jobs, according to an Ohio Department of Job and Family Services report released Friday. The number of unemployed workers also held steady in March at 294,000.

The sector that includes retail — the trade, transportation and utilities sector — shed 6,000 jobs last month, more than any other sector.

Nationally, it has been a similar story with retailers cutting more than 60,000 jobs in February and March.

Since the beginning of the year, big retailers such as Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sears have announced plans to close stores. Smaller chains such as Columbusbased The Limited and hhgregg have shut down or are planning to. Just Friday, Bebe Stores said it will close all its stores.

“There have been several

high-profile cutbacks. Some of the biggest box stores are struggling with the shift to online sales,” said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide. “We continue to buy more and more items online. At some point, it has to have an impact on brick-andmortar stores.”

Retail wasn’t the only sector to lose jobs in March.

The professional and business-services sector cut 3,800 jobs, and there was a loss of 2,800 jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector.

On the plus side, the private education and health-care sector added 6,000 jobs and construction added 1,000 jobs. Construction has added 15,500 jobs since December.

Revisions to February’s jobs report boosted the gains for the month by a solid 16,000 jobs.

A loss of jobs in March after the strength of hiring in February isn’t much of a surprise, said Tom Jackson, an economist with research firm IHS. In fact, he thought construction employment would fall in March after the big gains so far in 2017.

“When you take a step back and kind of put this up against the gains in February, it’s a little bit of a wash and doesn’t make the March numbers look as bad,” he said.

Because of the mild winter, employers with outdoor workers likely got a jump on hiring earlier than normal, and that caused the March numbers to look weaker, economists say.

The March results also could reflect hiring in sectors that got started earlier than normal because of the mild winter, Ayers said.

“Ohio added jobs in the first quarter (of 2017) at a faster pace than all of last year. ... It was a good quarter for Ohio,” he said.

The unemployment report is made up two surveys: one of households that determines the unemployment rate and a second one of employers that shows how many jobs they added or cut during the month. The surveys don’t always move in the same direction.

The household survey showed a jump of 28,000 people entering the labor force, and all of them found jobs. That is on top of an increase of 35,000 in February.

Big increases like that are typically seen as a sign of confidence in the economy, but there were big increases a year ago at this time that faded as the year progressed.

Jackson said people may be coming back into the labor force because wages are starting to improve.

“There is wage pressure in some markets, and we’re starting to get some wages up, especially in lowerskilled jobs,” he said. “That could pull people back into the labor force.”