By: Tara Kunkle
The local unemployment rates are at the highest point that they have been in the last 25 years. The Middletown and Hamilton jobless figures are still in the double digits. In February Butler County’s unemployment rate increased to 9.2 percent. This left 17,300 people jobless. It has not been over 9% since January of 1984. In Middletown and Hamilton the rates have been in double digits starting at 11.9% and 10.7%. Fairfield, which is the only other city in Butler County that is tracked by the state, had a jobless rate jump from 7.6% to 8.2%. Currently the county is below the state average which is 9.4% for February but it is above the national average of 8.1%.
Kyle Graham told Jessica Heffner of the Middletown Journal that he was applying at the Bridgewater Falls Target last week after three months of looking for office work. In January Butler County’s unemployment rate was 8.6%, a drastic rise to the same report one year ago that showed a rate of only 5.3%. The numbers for March are not expected to improve with AK Steel laying off additional workers for a maintenance shutdown for its blast furnace.
Click here to discuss the Butler County Ohio unemployment rates.
Source: Jessica Heffner - Middletown Journal