Number went from 180 to 3,600 in one month
More than 3,610 Union County residents are receiving or have filed for unemployment benefits.
“There is no doubt, the number is staggering,” said Eric Phillips, Union County economic development director.
This morning the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) released state and county unemployment numbers for April 11. Unemployment numbers are calculated on Saturdays for the prior week. According to the ODJFS, 3,610 Union County residents are now on unemployment insurance. This number includes 1,367 continuing cases and 2,243 new unemployment insurance claims.
According to ODJFS labor market information, Union County had 28,500 people employed and 1,000 unemployed in February, giving the county a 3.5% unemployment rate using the agency’s formula.
As of March 7, Union County had 188 unemployment insurance claims —176 existing cases with 12 new claims filed that week. By March 21, there were 160 continuing claims with 732 new claims filed. As of April 4, Union County had 1,035 continued claims and 1,371 new filings.
Has the county reached a peak?
“I don’t know if we have or not,” Phillips said. “I think there is a possibility we have not seen the peak, but we are nearing it if we haven’t.”
Sue Ware, director of Union County Human Services, said it is too early for Honda-specific data because “Honda employees are just this week filing for unemployment.”
Last week, the company furloughed more than 4,100 associates at Marysville Auto Plant and 100 associates at Performance Manufacturing Center and this week the company furloughed “the majority of our salaried and support associates at Honda operations in the U.S.”
Phillips said not only is the state overwhelmed, local economic development directors are overwhelmed.
“Most of us have never seen numbers like this,” Phillips said. “There is a lot of uncertainty because this is uncharted water.”
At Monday’s city council meeting, city council member J.R. Rausch said the city needs to care for those unemployed.
“We need to be thinking of our most hard-hit residents, how to help them as much as we can,” Rausch said.
He said city officials need to have a conversation “fairly soon.”
Phillips said the key is to focus on “how strong the economy was before all this.”
“Hopefully we can get back there,” Phillips said. “Hopefully, if we can get the economy restarted, these businesses will rehire all these people.”
He encouraged the public to shop local and support area businesses now and when they reopen.
Ware said she has asked the state for additional March information but has not received that yet.
“I know the state UI (unemployment insurance) staff are extremely busy trying to handle the volume of UI claims currently,” Ware wrote.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted addressed the frustration social service directors and the public are expressing. Husted said the system was not built to handle the volume of incoming claims.
According to ODJFS, for the week ending April 11, 158,678 initial jobless claims were reported to the U.S. Dept. of Labor. The number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last four weeks stands at 855,197 which is about 20% more than the combined total for the last two years.
Husted said the computer system was built in 2004 and until recently had 42 people working at the UI call center.
Gov. Mike DeWine said the system worked fine pre-pandemic when unemployment was at 4%.
Now there are 1,194 people working in the call center and Husted says that’s still not enough. He said the state is adding people as fast it they can, but there is a limited number of trainers and a limited number of people who can train at a time.