MOUNT VERNON – Considering the fact that Knox County and the rest of the nation have endured a nearly year-long COVID-19 pandemic, the job market is remarkably resilient; Matthew Kurtz told the Mount Vernon News.
Kurtz, who is director of the Knox County Department of Job and Family Services, said that unemployment was at 4.2% in December.
“It’s still a little bit COVID-affected, I think,” he said. “It was about 3.6% in December 2019. But mostly, I think our local job market is holding pretty strong.”
In fact, Kurtz noted that if a new large employer moves in, there is some concern in the county whether there would be enough employees to meet the demand.
“We’re almost at full employment,” he said.
The tight job market is caused in part by the retirement of members of the Baby Boom generation who were born in the years after World War II.
“I don’t know that we as a nation ever address the idea of what to do when Baby Boomers retire,” Kurtz said.
One way to do that is to attract young people back to Ohio, he said.
“They’ve gone to places like Chicago and sometimes to the coasts,” Kurtz stated. “We’ve had a lot of what they call brain drain. Ohio has lost population. The growth has gone south and west.”
The nation also has not addressed immigration reform, he said.
“I think it just became a stalemate because of the polarization of the political parties,” Kurtz said. “It’s a shame, because if we don't have our own growth then you need to bring people in from elsewhere.”
Another challenge is making sure the county has enough affordable housing for new employees.
“The demand is outstripping the supply,” he said.
There is also a shortage of skilled workers such as plumbers, carpenters and electricians; which also hampers the supply of housing.
Local employers have done better at raising wages as the job market tightens, Kurtz commented, adding that cash public assistance in Knox County is actually at a historical low.
“When we implemented welfare reform in the late 1990s, we went from having almost a million people in Ohio on public assistance and now we’re down to 14,000,” he said. “We imposed work requirements and put a three-year limit on it. People responded by either getting a low-paying job or by qualifying for Social Security disability. They are still on food assistance and they have subsidized housing.”
