After 16 years on the job, Albert Moore said he was recently laid off from his position as an actuary at Ohio National Financial Services.
Moore said he was among the oldest of about 80 people impacted by the downsizing, which left him wondering whether he might end up like throngs of other workers 55 years old and older who lost jobs during the Great Recession and struggled for months, even years, to find a new gig.
"Here I am looking for a job after 16 years. It's really been an eye-opening experience,'' he said.
To his surprise, Moore said he discovered after about a month of looking that job openings were plentiful and his job search was progressing much faster than he anticipated.
"I thought it might take longer, but I'm hoping to have a job offer within the week. I'm very, very confident,'' the lifelong Cincinnatian told an Enquirer reporter between interviews at a job fair held Aug. 18 at the Hard Rock Casino in downtown Cincinnati.
Job seekers in better position than after the Great Recession
As Labor Day approaches, today's job seekers are in much better position than those looking for work during the jobs recovery from the Great Recession, which took years to complete at a painstakingly slow pace.
While slowing economic growth has led to hiring freezes and more layoffs compared to the same time last year, employers are still aggressively seeking to fill thousands of open positions in the wake of the pandemic.
Statewide, Ohio is about 130,000 jobs shy of employment levels in February 2020, the month before the pandemic was declared and many businesses were forced to shut down in compliance with government-mandated stay-at-home orders, according to research from Policy Matters Ohio, a nonpartisan progressive think-tank based in Cleveland and Columbus.
But employers have been working steadily to close the gap, based on revised employment figures from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services that showed Ohio posted a net gain of 7,000 jobs in July, Ohio's ninth straight month of gains.
The "job numbers are an encouraging sign of continued recovery for Ohio,'' said Policy Matters' researcher, Michael Shields.
Across the nation, employers added 528,000 new jobs in July as the unemployment rate for Ohio, 3.9%, and the United States, 3.5%, both remained at pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which also showed a boost in pay for most hourly workers.
What are companies doing to attract potential employees?
The pay increases were no accident, according to Shawn Walker, a recruiter for Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., which was among about 150 employers who set up tables at the Hard Rock Casino job fair, hosted by Superior Career Fairs.