Toledo area lost 22,000 jobs in manufacturing from 2001-09

Metro Toledo lost more than 22,000 manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2009, a number roughly equivalent to the populations of Perrysburg and Rossford combined, a Cleveland-area economic researcher said.

George Zeller, an analyst who specializes in Ohio employment statistics, said the losses in the Toledo area in the previous decade weren't the worst in the state but were part of a massive number of jobs "making things" that fled the state in the last decade.

"If the national recession is over, it hasn't shown up in the Ohio labor market yet," Mr. Zeller said yesterday.

His report, using government figures, showed that from 2001 to 2009, Lucas County lost 12,914 manufacturing jobs, Wood County lost nearly 4,900, Fulton County lost 3,525, and Ottawa County lost 752.

The percentages of losses were 42 percent in Lucas, 38 percent in Fulton, 32 percent in Wood, and 27 percent in Ottawa.

Mr. Zeller's study did not include Michigan counties.

Steve Weathers, president and chief executive officer of the Regional Growth Partnership, said Mr. Zeller's research points to the need for a more broad-based local economy.

"There's a lot to be said in developing a region in a diverse way, growing and attracting businesses in diverse industries," he said.

"While manufacturing jobs are great jobs, you want a diversity of jobs to protect you when you have an economic downturn. I don't think the region had enough diversity of jobs to protect it against a downturn when it happened."

But overall in employment, metro Toledo had sizable losses from 2000 to 2009, amounting to 54,100 jobs.

Mr. Zeller's report showed a total loss of 43,756 jobs of all kinds in Lucas County in that period, of 4,625 in Wood County, of 3,946 in Fulton County, and of 1,774 in Ottawa County.

The percentage losses in those counties were 18 percent, 8 percent, 18.5 percent, and 11 percent, respectively.

A shrinking auto industry, coupled with trade and national policies that led companies to move production to lower-cost countries, was responsible for the loss of 329,000 manufacturing jobs in Ohio in the last decade, Mr. Zeller said. Nationally, it was 4.45 million.

"The whole decimation of the auto industry hit everybody in Ohio pretty hard, including Toledo. My nomination for worst in the state was Dayton, and the only metro area even remotely that bad was Youngstown," the researcher said.

In total, Ohio lost an estimated 588,000 jobs between 2000 and 2009, Mr. Zeller said. Nationwide, almost 2.3 million jobs were lost during that period.

"You certainly can't blame that on productivity movements. Some of it is outright moving jobs overseas because of trade issues, and some of it is just out of our control because of national policy" that de-emphasizes manufacturing, he said.

Mr. Zeller said his research indicates Ohio has lost an estimated $22.3 billion in annual wages since 2000, an almost 11 percent decline he calls "catastrophic."

Contact Larry Vellequette at:

lvellequette@toledoblade.com

or 419-724-6091.