Federal shutdown will delay Ohio reports on joblessness

Whether the rise in Ohio’s unemployment rate this year continued in September will be a mystery for the time being.

The partial shutdown of the federal government means that the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services won’t be issuing an unemployment report as it typically does on the third Friday of the month. The same goes for county-by-county data and the metropolitan unemployment numbers that are due on Tuesday.

The state depends on federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data to assemble the report, and both agencies have been affected by the shutdown.

The last time there was a delay in the release of state employment data was 1996, which also was the last time there was a government shutdown.

The report will be released eventually, but no date has been set, said Benjamin Johnson, a Job and Family Services spokesman.

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