© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Jobs Created Since the Recession Aren't Necessarily as Good as Those Lost

photo of Lisa Hamler Fugitt
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU

Ohio’s economy, like the nation’s, has been improving in recent years since the economic downturn in 2008. Many of the jobs that are coming back are not like the ones that were lost during the most recent depression.

Lisa Hamler Fugitt is the head of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. She says many of the jobs that left Ohio paid living wages and provided benefits. But she says a recent federal study shows many of the jobs that are coming back are considered contingent jobs.

“Current contingent workers that fall into those categories were 30.6% of employed workers in 2005 and within five years, that number had risen to 40.4% of the U.S. workforce.”

Hamler Fugitt says those jobs usually don’t provide benefits for employees and don’t provide long term employment. She is urging Ohio lawmakers to consider that information when coming up with legislation to deal with unemployed or low-income Ohioans.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.