CLEVELAND — According to Lieutenant Governor John Husted, Ohio’s future is bright.
“Ohio continues to create jobs at a record pace. We have more jobs than any point in the history of Ohio,” Husted said.
Just last month, Husted said the state created around 5,800 jobs.
That number is in addition to the more than 88,000 employment opportunities Ohio has produced this year alone.
“This is a new day for Ohio, for generations. We were a state that was losing jobs. Now, we're a state that's gaining jobs,” said Husted.
Construction is also seeing record-high numbers with 253,000 workers, thanks partly to projects like the new Sherwin Williams headquarters in Cleveland and the Intel Plant in Central Ohio.
“We have a lot of projects that are being built, and that means that as soon as those projects are done, there's going to be thousands of more jobs that are going to come as a result of that construction,” said Husted.
Ariane Kirkpatrick who’s the CEO and President of The AKA Team tells News 5 she’s proud to see growth in her line of work because she says it shows a turnaround from the past.
“The numbers were actually going down, but right here in Cleveland, we saw all the construction coming, and we knew that it was something different and exciting here in Cleveland, which is expanding,” Kirkpatrick said.
Through the work of The AKA Team, Kirkpatrick hopes to contribute to this development as well as achieve social equity and justice.
“We want to make sure that we have contractors and sub-contractors that have the ability that have the capacity [to] grow at the same rate as construction. We want to make sure that we have the workforce, and we want to make sure that subcontractors, underrepresented contractors, have the ability to participate in the growth,” said Kirkpatrick.
While Ohio is seeing a lot of expansion, Husted recognizes there still are people struggling to find employment.
He hopes to lower the unemployment rate from 3.6%, which is still below the national average rate for October of 3.9%.
“We're trying to push for this for job training and higher wages so that people can get ahead,” said Husted.
