(File photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images).
New jobs reports have been released, with two think tanks calling Ohio’s employment picture “slow” and “flat.”
The analysis of the numbers by a panel of scientific thinkers comes after more than a decade during which the state’s Republican leaders diverted billions from taxpayers to wealthy interests on the promise that it would create jobs.
The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services released this information on Friday employment data for December.
It said the state added just 3,500 jobs in the last month of 2025, and the unemployment rate remains at 4.5%, still in the bottom half of states.
Those who stop looking for work are not counted in the unemployment rate because they are not considered part of the labor force.
Rea S. Hederman Jr., vice president of policy at the Buckeye Institute, said more Ohioans should join the workforce and create more private sector jobs.
“WITH national job gains slows down, ponderous private sector job growth in Ohio is not surprising,” Hederman said in a written statement.
“And while unemployment rates are historically high, more Ohioans must enter the workforce and create more jobs if Ohio, its communities and its workers are to thrive.”
Ohio’s labor market is dragging after decades of exploding inequality across the United States.
Last year, the nonpartisan Rand Corporation reported that if the bottom 90% of U.S. national income remained at the same level as in 1975 (66%), that group would get $80 trillion more until 2023.
The analysis shows that 9 in 10 Americans would receive $3.9 trillion more – or $13,000 for every person, regardless of age or employment status – in 2023 alone.
Molly Bryden, a researcher at Policy Matters Ohio, said some of these inequities are noticeable in the latest Ohio jobs report.
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“The accommodation and food services sector overall recorded huge losses in 2025, with 9,500 job losses last year,” it said in a written statement.
“Overall, uneven growth in the service industry implies growing income inequality among working Ohioans. Employment in higher-paying occupations in professional and business services increased by 13,100 in 2025, coinciding with a slowdown in employment in lower-wage jobs in the accommodation and food services sectors.”
Bryden added that inequality itself helps weaken the economy.
“Job losses in the lodging and food services sector may indicate that rising prices are creating challenges for businesses to maintain employment levels, along with lower demand for lodging and dining services among Ohio families as inflation continues to strain household budgets,” she said.
“Continued weakness in the lodging and food services sector – an important economic factor – could have spillover effects, further hampering Ohio’s economic growth.”
There appears to be a mighty political imperative to alleviate economic inequality.
A YouGov survey this month showed this 80% of respondents he believed that the gap between luxurious and destitute was a very huge or quite huge problem.
This view dominated majorities across the ideological and political spectrum.
But despite these views, Ohio’s Republican leaders have used claims of job creation to redistribute taxpayer money upwards since John Kasich became governor in 2011.
That same year, he led the creation of JobsOhio. The entity claims to be a private corporation even though it was incorporated by the state government and was allowed to lease the state’s liquor franchise for less than it was worth.
JobsOhio now has a enormous, well-paid workforce and has given more than $1 billion in what used to be government dollars to private corporations. But agency leaders struggled to prove its actions created any jobs.
In 2013, the Republican-led Legislature created a tax break for confined liability companies, again arguing that it would also create jobs.
This costs the state over $1 billion annuallywith most of the benefits going to the wealthy. However, his supporters cannot show that he is fulfilling his promises to create jobs.
The LLC tax break is part of it $12 billion in annual tax cuts it tilted in favor of the wealthy last year, Policy Matters Ohio reported.
The latest jobs report can be seen as evidence that these cuts and JobsOhio have been ineffective.
The expectations of the Ohio Department of Development may be similar the state’s population will decline by 675,000 by 2050.
