Ohio Growth Outlook

According to a recent forecast report released by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, Ohio will create 660,000 new jobs during the next decade (2000-2010). This represents a modest 11 percent growth over the decade. That amounts to only 66,000 new jobs per year.

Which industries will create the most new jobs? No great surprises here. The service-producing side of the economy will account for 646,000 of all new jobs, or 97 percent of the total. Manufacturing is expected to tread water in the next decade but not grow appreciably in Ohio over the next decade. We should not give up on our manufacturing base. In fact, we need a very aggressive program to ensure that Ohio creates the "next-generation" manufacturing industries in the coming decade. These manufacturers will produce artificial organs, biochips and sensors, smart materials, fuel cells and a lots of new products and services.

According to the state report, Ohio's top ten job creation leaders in the next decade will be:

1. Personnel supply services (SIC 736): 82,000.
2. Computer and data processing services (SIC 737): 39,900.
3. Medical offices and clinics (SIC 801): 21,200.
4. Misc. business services (SIC 738): 15,000.
5. Home health care services (SIC 808): 14,900.
6. Misc. shopping stores (SIC 594): 14,400.
7. Residential care (SIC 836): 13,300.
8. Misc. amusement and recreation (SIC 799): 12,700.
9. Child day care services (SIC 835): 9,800.
10. Air transportation, scheduled (SIC 451): 9,700.

A quick look at this list says to me that: 1) these are pretty much the same industries that will lead national job growth in the next ten years; 2) many of these industries will not produce very many high-quality jobs; and 3) growth in many of these industries will occur without much encouragement from anybody.

What are my chief economic development concerns for the state? There are seven that come to mind:

1. What happens to manufacturing, and whether we can spark growth and innovation in this sector.

2. Whether Ohio can take some big steps in creating a healthy and balanced knowledge economy.

3. How we are going to raise the educational attainment levels of the state and its component regions.

4. Whether Ohio's leading companies will succeed in making significant global market share gains in their industries.

5. Whether we can increase our share of high-quality knowledge jobs.

6. Whether we can form stronger national and international ties with the new wealth-creating networks that are taking shape.

7. Whether we can move to a more productive (high-performance) system of government and nonprofit services across that state that costs us less and produces more value for everyone.

My view is that forecasts are not destiny. The state's most recent forecast could reinforce our current low expectations about what the Ohio economy is capable in the future. We need a shift in our expectations. We need to move to new "business models" of economic development that catapult our growth. The real gains we seek in the next decade should be gains in quality, not just quantity. What we create is probably more important than how much we create.

Get the Ohio forecast report here.