Central Ohio unemployment down to 5%
Central Ohio’s unemployment rate fell in March as employers slowly bring back the jobs that were lost during the early days of the pandemic.
The region’s unemployment rate fell to 5% from 5.4%, according to data released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The rate was 4.7% a year ago.
Cincinnati posted the lowest unemployment rate in March among the state’s metro areas at 4.2%. Cleveland had the next lowest rate at 4.9%.
The Columbus area added 6,500 jobs in March, led by a gain of 2,100 leisure and hospitality jobs, the hardesthit sector of the economy. The professional and business services sector
tional Traveler Sentiment Study found that 87% of respondents plan to travel in the next six months, and more than half of event planners intend to hold in-person or hybrid gatherings in the second half of 2021.
Data from 2020 paints a dark picture. In a normal year, the Columbus metropolitan statistical area has more than 104,000 jobs in the hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, bars and hotels. That sector lost roughly 27,000 jobs in 2020. If not for lifeboats such as the CARES Act, which offered billions of dollars to support businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program, job losses would have been even more devastating.
Every lost booking and cancelled convention cascades through the city's economy, robbing local businesses of needed revenue, said Bill Lafayette, owner of economics firm Regionomics.
“It's significant not just for the hotels themselves, but for the suppliers for the hotels and for their employees,” Lafayette said. “If the hotel is buying fewer goods and services, the suppliers from which they buy those things wind up being less busy, and their employees wind up being less busy. (They work) fewer hours, and maybe there are more layoffs.”
Visitors to the region patronize local businesses, notably bars and restaurants, he said.
Every dollar spent in a hotel results in 89 cents spent elsewhere in the local economy, and every dollar spent at a full-service restaurant results in a dollar spent somewhere else, according to the
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Every hotel job sustains two-thirds of a job elsewhere, and every restaurant job supports half a job in another sector of the economy.
The hospitality industry was the first hit and will likely be one of the last sectors of the economy to recover, said Kenny Mcdonald, CEO of the One Columbus economic development group.
“The industrial sector (for example) been going full-throttle the entire time with various disruptions,” he said. “Restaurants and hotels were effectively shut down, and it will longer to get them back up and running.”
Tourism depends heavily on the travel industry, and “it will take work to build confidence in the safety of the market,” Mcdonald said.
But he expects that industry ultimately will emerge stronger than before as Americans start to feel more comfortable taking trips.
Coming back
Ross sees plenty of reason for optimism. “We are seeing a lot of very positive data, and there is a pent-up demand for people to travel,” he said. “Hotels are running 65%, 60% occupancy, whereas (this time) last year they were running maybe 5% or 6%, and some were shut down.”
More than 37% of Ohioans have received at least the first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and everyone over 16 years old is now eligible for an initial dose. With the vaccination program ramping up, Ross hopes the worst of the coronavirus pandemic will be behind us by the summer.
Don Deperro, CEO of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, noted that rental platforms such as Airbnb are reporting huge spikes in bookings for the rest of 2021.
“We're coming back stronger,” he said.
In the meantime, he encouraged central Ohioans to continue to support local businesses until the region's economy returns to normal.
pcooley@dispatch.com