Ohio experiences largest proportionate decline in employment since the end of the Great Depression

Ohio job losses worst since WWII, report says | Source: Plain Dealer | Posted by Frank Bentayou February 20, 2008 18:46PM

The more than 209,000 non-farm jobs Ohio lost from 2000 to 2007 comprised the largest proportionate decline in employment since the end of the Great Depression, a national manufacturing trade group said Wednesday.

Employment dropped by 3.7 percent, the biggest seven-year drop since the period starting in 1939, near the end of the Depression and including the years the U.S. military absorbed millions of American workers to fight World War II...

McMillion, also in Washington, said Ohio lost 23.3 percent of its manufacturing sector jobs, or 236,000 positions, over the recent seven years. Some other sectors gained jobs. It was a period, he said, of markedly lower capital investment in domestic industrial capacity in Ohio and throughout the nation.

It was also a period, he said, when American consumers and the government borrowed $10.3 trillion, "what should have been a tremendous stimulus," but it scarcely helped American workers. ...