Valley Unemployment Declines in May

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Local unemployment rates in May declined from the previous month, and were down by more than 10 percentage points from the same time in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered many businesses.

Mahoning County’s unemployment rate last month was 6.2%, down from 6.8% in April, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported. Trumbull County posted a similar decline, falling to 6.1% in May from 6.7% the month before. Columbiana County’s unemployment rate dropped just a tenth of a percentage point month over month, to 5.4% in May.

All three counties posted double-digit rates a year earlier. In May 2020, Trumbull County’s rate was 18.0%, Mahoning County’s was 17.3% and Columbiana County’s was 17.0%.

The Mahoning Valley’s two largest cities also reported improved unemployment rates from a year earlier.

Youngstown posted an 8.6% unemployment rate in May, down from 20.4% a year earlier and more modestly from 8.7% in April. Warren’s 8.1% rate in May, a slight increase from 7.9% the month before, was down from 21.6% in May 2020.

In the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Mahoning and Trumbull counties in Ohio and Mercer County in Pennsylvania, unemployment was 6.2% in May, down from 6.8% the month before and from 17.0% in May 2020.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.