SALEM - Ohio has lost 528,331 high-wage manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2009, a number that represented eight percent of the state's employment, according to economic data compiled by Cleveland research analyst George Zeller.

Unemployment in Ohio stood at 10.5 percent in October.

Zeller said the 2000's recession "has been extraordinarily damaging in Ohio."

A 1967 Salem High School graduate, Zeller said the annual loss to the state in actual paycheck earnings is $19.79 billion, noting that the rest of the country was increasing employment until 2008 when the bottom fell out.

Ohio was already trailing the national trend from what were "primarily manufacturing job losses," he said, adding "Ohio lost a staggering 44.4 percent of its high-wage manufacturing employment in just eight years between 2001 and 2009.

"The widespread dismantling of Ohio's most important industry created a major catastrophe in the state.

"In 83 of the state's 88 counties and in all of its large urban counties, more than a fifth of all high-wage manufacturing jobs disappeared during the 2000's recession. More than one-third of all manufacturing jobs vanished during this period in 66 of Ohio's 88 counties."

All counties in the Youngstown-Warren region lost at least 30 percent of their high-wage manufacturing jobs just since 2001, Zeller said, with Mahoning County losing 12.9 percent of its employment since 2000, while it lost 30.3 percent of its high-wage manufacturing employment.

Trumbull County lost 25,366 jobs during the last nine years, a loss of 27.1 percent of all local employment.

Zeller said, "The massive size of the Trumbull County losses has been horrible. In Trumbull County alone, the annual loss in paycheck earnings during the last nine years is a mammoth and extremely alarming $1.64 billion, or 41.3 percent drop in all local paychecks.

Since 2001, Trumbull County has lost an "eye-popping" 53.8 percent of its manufacturing employment, he said.

Columbiana County lost 5,451 jobs since 2000, for a total employment loss of 16 percent. In Columbiana County the manufacturing job loss since 2001 was 3,728 jobs, a very deep decline of 36.1 percent.

The annual loss in paycheck earnings in Columbiana County since 2000 has been $215.6 million, a loss of 20.8 percent and over a fifth of the local payroll.

"The size of these regional losses is truly a disaster," Zeller said.

Conversely, Summit County has been the only large urban county in Ohio that avoided job losses during the lengthy 2000's recession. But, a loss of 11,867 jobs in Summit County since last year created a net loss of 5,049 jobs since 2000.

All the large Ohio urban counties have now lost employment during the 2000's recession, including Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Montgomery, Franklin, Lucas, Trumbull, Stark, Mahoning, Lorain, Allen, Clark, Richland, and Summit Counties.

Zeller said, "The loss of such massive numbers of jobs across Ohio has created an extremely alarming level of human suffering all over the state as workers saw their paychecks plunge to zero on a massive scale.

"The very large job and paycheck losses also caused tax revenues to

plunge on a statewide basis. In short, Ohio is experiencing an economic disaster of historic proportions."

He explained, "The main culprit in the recession was, as usual, in manufacturing. Just since 2000, Ohio has lost 528,331 high wage manufacturing jobs. This was a loss of 44.5 percent of Ohio's main economic base in manufacturing.

"Since the average manufacturing job in Ohio pays $50,466 compared to the average pay for all other Ohio jobs outside manufacturing at a much lower $38,431, the loss of almost half of the state's manufacturing jobs rippled rapidly through the rest of Ohio's economy, leading to job losses in other industries on a very widespread basis," he said.

Zeller took special issue with the state-generated Quarterly Census of Employment and Wage reports noting that "for decades the QCEW complete count of job's data have been suppressed within some industries in small counties ... This is done so that employment and earnings data for individual firms cannot be identified within the QCEW data, so as to maintain the confidentiality of employment and earnings data within firms."

He also charged the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for increasing the level "at which it suppresses data within some industries in the QCEW database."

For example, Zeller said the BLS not only releases data for Health Care and Social Assistance for counties, "but it releases subcategories such as hospitals, physicians, nursing and residential care facilities, child day care services, and a host of other subcategories."

In order to protect confidentiality of individual firms in these industries, the BLS has drastically increased the degree of suppression of data for many small counties ..."

He explained, "Beginning with data for the first quarter of 2009, BLS no longer provides QCEW data for Health Care and Social Assistance in 26 Ohio counties.

"Such widespread suppression of data within Ohio's only growing industry was clearly a disservice to the general public by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."

It was a major blunder, Zeller said, noting the result was the data for 26 counties was combine into a single figure in the report within Health Care and Social Assistance.

For more information, visit www.nacs.net/~georgez/qew1Q09.pdf.

Larry Shields can be reached at lshields@salemnews.net