Lorain County and the state have a long way to go to see significant and meaningful declines in unemployment, but a manager of a local temporary job placement service said he’s seeing some hopeful signs.

“Things always get slow around the holidays, but I have noticed a little pick-up across the board,” said Tom Payne, manager of Minutemen Staffing Services on Middle Avenue in Elyria.

Hiring has been on a slight upswing in recent weeks at factories and machine shops, the types of businesses that Minutemen typically works with to find temporary workers.

“Once the holidays get past us, I look for things to pick up a little more,” Payne said.

Lorain County’s 9.5 percent jobless rate for November was a full percentage point below the October number, according to figures released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Elyria and Lorain both saw drops in jobless rates. Elyria declined from 10.5 percent in October to 9.8 percent in November, while Lorain dropped from 12.8 percent in October to 11.2 percent for November.

The Elyria temporary agency has seen a decided drop-off in calls from people seeking work, Payne said, but he’s not sure why.

“It could be that people realize this is a slow time of year and they aren’t making the effort to look for jobs right now, or it could be a case of people having found a job,” he said.

In neighboring counties, the jobless rate rose from 10.5 percent for October to 11 percent in November in Erie County.

Meanwhile, Medina County continued to have one of the state’s lowest jobless rates at 8 percent, while Ashland and Huron counties saw their unemployment rise to 12.2 and 13.7 percent respectively. The two counties’ jobless figures for October stood at 11.6 and 13.4 percent respectively.

Statewide, unemployment stood at 10.6 percent in November, which was practically unchanged from the 10.5 percent jobless rate reported for October.

“The number of employed Ohioans rose slightly in November, but not enough to produce a significant change” in the overall unemployment rate, according to ODJFS Director Douglas Lumpkin, who said an increase in employment in service-related industries was partially offset by a slight drop in goods-producing jobs.

Nationally, November unemployment stood at 10 percent, down from 10.2 percent in October.

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.

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