Figures released on Tuesday show the jobless rate in one eastern Ohio county remains in double-digits. Monroe County had an unemployment rate of 11.3% percent in March - the highest in the state. The recent study by the Center for Community Solutions shows the county has lost 1/3 of its jobs in the past few years.
A local government website says Monroe County is Ohio's "rising star."
"Well it's not shining real bright right now. That was back when Safe Auto came in. And we were not on strike at that time," says Arlene Selvy, the publisher of the Monroe County Beacon.
Selvy says the county seat, Woodsfield, had just landed the Safe Auto insurance company at its local industrial park back in 2001. But then in 2004, more than 1200 steel workers went on strike at Ormet aluminum, the county's largest employer. While the strike continued, Ormet sold off part of its local operation to another company, and the resulting job losses, Selvy says, hit the county hard.
"There is a negative impact," Selvy says. "When you see 1500 jobs lost, and of course there not all Monroe County jobs, we're just right across the river from West Virginia, but I would say that many of them were Monroe County jobs that were lost."
And the county hasn't been the same since. According to Selvy, a local clothing store is unable to replenish its inventory. "For Sale" signs are scattered across the lawns of homes around the county; and the local food pantry that served 23 people in 1995 now serves 1200. Selvy says her newspaper, The Beacon," has also felt the impact.
"I can say for our business, for the newspaper business, there's a lot less advertising. Not only are the people in the county leery about investing in advertising in the newspaper, areas around us are saying, 'We don't want to advertise in Monroe County because those people aren't going to come here.'"
But Arlene Selvy is optimistic that her rural county of 15,000 will rise again.
"I don't think that Monroe County is going to go down the tubes, and don't think we're going to turn into forest land, I think the county's going to come out of this. But right now it's in hard times; it doesn't mean we're going to stay there; things can happen. And I personally think that things will happen."
In the meantime, Selvy says, the dwindling tax base is a major cause of declining quality in the local schools. She says residents just don't have any more money for a millage increase.