Cleveland economic researcher George Zeller said last week's state job report showed unemployment in the Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull county area "surprisingly" the least elevated levels in the state. However, the numbers remain bad.

The monthly employment figures pushed the state into record territory, Zeller, a 1967 Salem High School graduate, said, in spite of a gain of 1,400 jobs statewide, according to the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Ohio unemployment in October stands at 10.5 percent.

"This lengthy streak of 164 consecutive months when Ohio's job growth has been slower than the U.S. national average is an all-time record in the history of Ohio," he said. "

The state has now gone 13 years nd eight months with its job growth continuously below the national average, including all months during those 13 years.

"In October, Ohio's year over year job growth rate was negative at 4.5 percent. The October job growth rate in the United States was sharply negative with a decline of four percent. The more than 13 full years of sub-par job growth in Ohio is certainly the most serious chronic problem that Ohio faces today," Zeller said, calling the streak "horribly lengthy."

Conversely, and also surprisingly, Zeller said, "Columbus has once again exceeded Canton and Cincinnati as the Ohio urban metropolitan area with the most elevated level of new unemployment claims above normal 'job growth' levels at this time of year."

Zeller said according to the Department of Labor, Youngstown is considered one of Ohio's big cities. He said a more detailed report, focusing on the tri-county area will be released on Tuesday. He said the current data strongly points to "no sign of any recovery."

Ohio's loss of jobs during the 12 months of 2008 was 146,900. Ohio's job loss during the first 10 months of 2009 has been 173,400 jobs. Since the national recession started in December 2007, Ohio has lost 329,600 jobs, 6 percent of the state's employment in only 23 months, Zeller said.

The tri-county area, which has experienced, "enormous job losses" especially in Trumbull County, benefited from stimulus money and the cash for clunkers program, Zeller said.

"It improved somewhat with cash for clunkers," he said, noting the huge General Motors assembly complex in Lordstown added workers. That helped.

"That made last week's data on the Youngstown-Warren area look better than the rest of the state ... but still the numbers are bad ... and all Ohio urban regions including the Youngstown and Warren area have current levels of new unemployment claims that are more than double normal job growth levels.

"No city in Ohio is recovering from the recession. The surprise is the Youngstown-Warren area is losing jobs at a level less that is less than Columbus and Cincinnati," Zeller said. "The second-highest levels of currently elevated job loss are in Canton, with Cincinnati ranking third worst. "In metro Columbus, current levels of new unemployment claims remain more than triple a normal job growth level. These rankings are relative measures, since virtually the entire state in 81 counties is still currently suffering job destruction from layoffs."

The fact that Columbus is suffering Ohio's most elevated level of current layoffs for the fourth consecutive week remains a highly unusual situation, Zeller said. "This is not a minor recession, certainly not in our lifetimes," he said. "It's the worst contraction (of the economy) in the lives of most of your readers."