MANSFIELD, Ohio — Richland County is forecasted to experience a 1.1-percent increase in employment, which translates to an additional 600 jobs in 2016.
That was just one projection shared by Joel Elvery, an economist in the External Outreach and Regional Analytics Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Elvery’s address came during the economic forecast breakfast at the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center on Thursday.
The second annual event, sponsored in part by the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce, Richland Community Development Group and the Mansfield and Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau, drew a number of community leaders and allowed attendees to catch a glimpse of what Richland County can expect in the new year.
Other county-wide projections that Elvery mentioned include a further drop in unemployment, weaker home price growth than in 2015 and a continuation of the population loss at a modest rate.
While reviewing local statistics, he noted that though the recession impacted the whole nation, it was “especially awful in Richland County.” Unemployment peaked at 13.5 percent in the county, dramatically higher than the state and national peak, he said.
As of November, the county had a 5.4 percent unemployment rate, comparable to the national rate.
He also discussed credit card delinquency rates.
“I think this is another way to see what was the relative impact of the recession in Richland County versus the U.S. and Ohio,” he said.
Although the rates are currently not as low as in 2005 and 2006, they’re comparable to Ohio and below the U.S. at seven percent.
“Richland County’s been losing population every year since 2003,” he said. “At the worst, 2010 and 2011, you lost .9 percent of the population — that’s a very large population loss for a county to sustain.
“The good news on this front is that population loss has slowed down,” Elvery said. “It’s in the area of basically a quarter of a percent per year.
“When you have that kind of population loss, it then produces weaker employment growth.”
Employment fell 15 percent between March 2006 and March 2010.
“Since then, there was a bit of a recovery early on. It came back down when the GM plant closed, and I assume there were some other closures. And since 2013, it’s basically been hovering around 52,500.”
From June 2014-2015, employment dropped 1.2 percent.
Manufacturing remains the primary driver of the county’s economy, with 19 percent of total employment in June 2015 versus about nine percent in the nation.
While pointing to a slide that displayed the breakdown of total employment in eight different sectors (manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; education and health services; government; leisure and hospitality; professional and business services; construction; and financial activities), Elvery said, “All but one sector lost employment between June 2014 and June 2015.”
That one sector was manufacturing, which experienced a larger percentage growth than the state and nation. About 250 new manufacturing jobs were added during that timeframe.
Richland County Commissioner Marilyn John asked about population migration and what could be attributed to local population loss.
“If you look at most of the migration from Richland County, it’s actually to other parts of Ohio, and that’s pretty typical,” Elvery said.
He added that short run population growth is responsive to employment changes, whereas long run population growth is responsive to where people want to live.
“Warmth and coasts — those seem to be two big ones that people are moving toward,” he said. “In the short run, people follow jobs. In the long run, jobs follow people.”
Richland County Chamber of Commerce President Jodie Perry ended the presentation on a positive note.
“We know that there are a lot of positive things going on in the county,” Perry said.
She mentioned the “Richland Rocks” campaign, which, she said, was meant to “encourage us to have some pride in our community because there are a lot of things that the statistics don’t tell us about what is happening in Richland County.”
“(People should continue) to live the Richland Rocks mentality,” she added. “The only way that we’re going to be back here in a few years with some awesome slides from Dr. Elvery is going to be by us joining together and working really hard to get Richland County, not just where it was, but to an even better place.”
