CLEVELAND—The Bureau of Labor Statistics' July metro-area data shows continued job growth across the nation, Julie Zisfein, senior associate and economist with Auction.com Research, told GlobeSt.com yesterday. Zisfein said the BLS employment data results were on par with the month prior, as 42 of 52 metros saw payrolls rise in July.
“Zooming out, the picture gets more encouraging, as just five metros have seen employment fall over the last three months while only two remain flat,” Zisfein added. “There are only five metros with lower payrolls than six months ago, and only Cleveland has seen employment fall from a year ago.”
The sour note hit by the Cleveland metro area did not surprise local experts. “The whole state of Ohio is performing poorly,” said Cleveland economist George Zeller. “The July 2013 gain of 5,300 jobs in Ohio was an improvement over recent months when Ohio lost employment. But, the speed at which Ohio is gaining jobs continues to be too slow. Ohio has extended a new streak of sub-par job growth to 13 consecutive months, or more than one full year.” As of last month, he added, the state's year over year job growth was only 1.0% while US job growth over the same period was 1.72%.
“And you have Cleveland performing worse than the state while the state performs worse than the rest of the nation.” He attributes much of the metro area's struggle to cutbacks in government jobs. The state lost nearly 10,000 government jobs in the past year alone, he said, with local governments losing about 8,700. “There is a broad-based weakness, but the biggest weakness in Cleveland is government. We need to speed up the rate of growth, but we're deliberately slowing it down.”
The beginnings of an industrial revival, especially in the auto industry, have certainly helped, Zeller added. But in the past few decades, manufacturing became less important for Cleveland while finance, banking and insurance started playing a more central role.
The Cleveland-based National City Corporation, for example, grew into one of the largest commercial banks in the country before succumbing to the subprime mortgage crisis. Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services purchased it in late 2008 for about $5.2 billion in stock. Therefore, the big crunch that began in 2008 has lingered longer in the city and its suburbs than in other areas still dependent on heavy industry.
“That's the exact opposite trend of what we've seen over the past several decades.” The state's fastest growing city, for example, is now Youngstown. “That is a very startling thing for people who got accustomed to thinking of Youngstown as a basket case after the collapse of the steel industry.” But the city now has a General Motors plant nearby that manufactures the popular Chevy Cruze and that's “having a broad, regional effect.”
In Cleveland, "we need less layoffs. Then we will start seeing improvements in those figures," said Zeller.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
