BREAKING: Local jobless rate ends year up

Associated Press

Associated Press

Regional jobless rates edged higher in December, according to figures released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

In Montgomery County, the area’s most populous county, the unemployment rate climbed to 4.6 percent last month from 4.4 percent in November but is still lower than the rate was a year ago at 4.7 percent, according to the jobs report.

The city of Dayton saw unemployment reach 5.4 percent last month, up from 5.3 percent in November and equal to the rate in December 2015.

Neighboring Greene County posted a December unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, up from 3.8 percent in November and also equal to the county’s rate a year ago.

By comparison, Ohio’s unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in December, unchanged from November but up from 4.8 percent in December 2015.

The state added 10,300 jobs last month while unemployment rates increased in 81 or Ohio’s 88 counties, decreased in four and remained unchanged in three.

December rates ranged from a low of 3.1 percent in Mercer County to a high of 9.6 percent in Monroe County.

The latest unemployment statistics show a tightening labor market heading toward full employment, or the point where nearly everyone who wants a job can find a job, according to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, which represents the Federal Reserve’s Fourth District, including Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

“We conclude that individual states in the District (as well as the District as a whole) have almost no labor market slack remaining as of the end of the second quarter of 2016,” according to the authors of the report.

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