Ohio bled jobs in '00-'05; Census figures paint bleak picture of state, region

BYLINE: Frank Bentayou, Plain Dealer Reporter

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Check out our interactive map to see county-by-county business patterns.

Ohio lagged far behind the nation in creating businesses during the first five years of the 21st century, a U.S. Census Bureau report shows.

But in Northeast Ohio, a more alarming trend emerged from the new government figures, released this week. They showed that the seven-county region not only lost almost 102,000 workers between 2000 and 2005, but that the number of businesses declined as well.

Beyond that, the census data pegged Cuyahoga County's business loss at 3.4 percent, with 1,216 fewer businesses in 2005 than in 2000.

The county also suffered an employment decline of more than 80,000 - a five-year loss of more than one in every 10 workers.

Nationally, the number of businesses grew by almost 430,000 to 7.5 million, a 6 percent increase over the five years. Total workers grew 2.2 million, or 2 percent, to 116 million, the bureau reported.

For this region, Jim Robey said more recent data would show a livelier economy than the new figures suggest. Robey is vice president for research at Team NEO, a 13-county organization aimed at fortifying the Northeast Ohio economy by encouraging businesses. "Looking at two-year-old data can be distressing," he said.

Economic information he harvested from Economy.com for the last three months of 2006 and the opening quarter of 2007 "actually shows higher employment in our region than in 2002," Robey said. Moody's Economy.com, based in West Chester, Pa., is an online source of worldwide economic information.

Robey also said he is realistic. "This is not a fast-growth economy, but we've had positive job growth every quarter" since the middle of 2005.

The region's historic economic hardship is no secret to Joe Roman, president and chief executive of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, whose job also is regional economic development.

He said "a spectrum of organizations and individuals" are working to encourage economic growth. The most recent focus is on more effective marketing.

Another perspective is that state leaders need to focus policy more sharply on rebuilding the economy. That's the view of Bruce Katz, director of metropolitan policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

"The basic story is that for the region to move, it needs to decide what kind of economy it wants to be and make clear bets," he said in a phone interview.

"We don't think Ohio has had enough focus on investing in urban revitalization, innovation and advanced research," Katz said. The census report illuminates Ohio's past failure to forge "a vital economic vision."

The full census report, called County Business Patterns, is available online at censtats.census.gov/cgi-bin/cbpnaic/cbpsect.pl. It focuses quite finely on the region's employer and employee count for the years it covers.

For instance, it shows that Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit counties gained almost 5,000 "educational services" workers - teachers, school administrators and such - from 2000 to 2005, an employment increase of more than 18 percent.

Manufacturing, though, dropped 49,030 jobs, a 20.3 percent decline. That five-year loss of jobs dwarfed the more than 17,000 additional doctors, nurses, medical technicians and social workers who pushed the health care and social assistance category to almost 200,000 employees in 2005.

One detail from the government data may offer some encouragement. The state's total employment showed an ever-so-slight increase (just a 413-worker gain) from 2004 to 2005, while the number of Ohio businesses declined slightly, 0.3 percent.

Team NEO's Robey takes that to mean that "if you look at 2004, the economy bottomed out here in terms of employment. Since then, it's moved up and started to rebound."

He noted that the roughly 5 percent unemployment the state has tracked in recent years means a tight job market. "There are plenty of economists who consider 5 percent full employment," he said.

Katz of the Brookings Institution has a different take.

"The drift of state policy and lack of consistent, sustained investment in matters that make a difference have impeded Ohio's economy," he said.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: fbentayou@plaind.com, 216-999-4116