CLEVELAND — OhioMeansJobs-Cuyahoga County is hosting a virtual job fair Thursday with 80 northeast Ohio companies and organizations looking for new employees.
The virtual job fair runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Those interested can reserve a spot here.
OhioMeansJobs said 300 open positions are available at Thursday’s job fair. The openings come from the service industry, health care, manufacturing and information technology fields among others. Some of the area’s largest employers, including the Cleveland Clinic, Cedar Point, Fifth Third Bank and Spectrum, will be represented.
Those attending are encouraged to upload an updated resume. OhioMeansJobs said that those without home internet access can contact PCs for People at 216-930-5741 to determine eligibility for free internet access and a computer.
OhioMeansJobs said it has more than 180,000 positions on its online database, with more than half of those positions paying more than $50,000 annually.
Ohio’s unemployment rate, which was at 4.7% in March, nearly matched pre-pandemic levels, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Although the number of Ohioans who are unemployed has dropped continually since last April when the unemployment rate jumped to 16.1% during the onset of the pandemic, participation in the workforce has continually declined, according to federal figures.
In February 2020, an estimated 5.9 million Ohioans were part of the state’s workforce. Among those in the workforce, 5.62 million Ohioans were employed. In March 2021, the workforce dipped to 5.75 million, with 5.48 million Ohioans holding jobs. The result of these figures is that the percentage of Ohioans in the workforce dropped from 63.7% in February 2020 to 62.1% in March 2021.
In an effort to encourage more Ohioans on unemployment to actively seek work, Gov. Mike DeWine announced last week that he is ending a $300 per week supplement on top of standard unemployment benefits. He is also reinstituting a requirement that those on unemployment must actively look for work.
