CLEVELAND — Zip code data provided by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services shows a shift over the last 15 years, with the number of jobs increasing in places on the fringe of Cuyahoga County.
While cities such as Solon, Independence and Westlake all saw an increase in their number of reported jobs, University Circle and the zip code 44106 saw the largest increase, adding more than 20,000 jobs.
In a span of fewer than seven years, Sheng Long Yu and his team managed to whip up food option ideas for just about every craving that passes through University Circle.
His team is behind Kenko, Hell's Fried Chicken, The Sweet Spot, and Build the Pho, all located in University Circle.
Between these four restaurants, two of which opened earlier this year, Sheng Long Yu estimates he added about 80-90 jobs to the area.
"Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals has grown this area at an amazing pace so we feel this is perfect timing," Sheng Long Yu said.
Bryce Sylvester and Jacob Duritsky make up part of the group at Team NEO, an economic development group that helps companies expand and move into Northeast Ohio.
"Those areas of our region are strong," Sylvester said. "That's what we call sprawl and I think that the market was really driving a lot of that. Where can I drive to build a new building that's around population centers?"
"Cuyahoga County has seen some population declines in labor force over the past several decades," Durisky said. "But, we've also seen growing demand for some of the most in-demand opportunities in the economy. So when you think STEM, when you think health care, when you think IT, there's tremendous demand. To me, that says there's tremendous potential to leverage a base of people here who have been disconnected from the labor market. So how do we think more holistically about taking the assets we have, in this case, human capital, and connecting those in the right way to the opportunities?"
Which zip code saw the largest decrease in jobs?
During that same stretch from 2005-2019, Downtown Cleveland, east of Ontario Street, saw a decrease in 9,000 jobs over that same period of time.
Data that doesn’t need to be shown to Michael Deemer, who spoke with News 5 prior to his "State of Downtown" speech at the City Club of Cleveland last week.
“We can’t have a strong region without a strong city. We can’t have a strong city without a strong core.” - @MDeemer at @TheCityClub’s State of Downtown: Optimism for the Future.
— DowntownCLE (@DowntownCLE) November 10, 2022
Tune in now: https://t.co/fjfdLqn9Wk pic.twitter.com/nyjyBINHqQ
The Downtown Cleveland Alliance president and CEO took over the job last year, tasked with helping reshape this city’s core, even without 40% of its workforce back in the office post-pandemic.
RELATED: Transformation needed for downtown Cleveland to thrive, leaders say
"We haven’t seen challenges like this Downtown since the ’90s," he said. "We've got to create an experience downtown that makes people want to be here. That’s really where downtown Cleveland has to head in the future."
As a whole, Cuyahoga County went from 620,935 private, nongovernmental jobs in 2005 to 620,152 in 2019, a loss of 783 jobs.
When looking at the zip code data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, it is worth pointing out that the information provided only shows private companies' jobs.
Additionally, it also does not account for jobs that do not have a physical address.
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