When you consider Ohio, you might think about a rust belt state that is characterized by high unemployment and a lack of investment, at least in many communities. But Ohio’s economic picture is shifting rapidly. Today, Ohio boasts an unemployment rate lower than both the nation’s and Maryland’s. As of July, it stood at 5.7 percent. Four years ago, Ohio’s unemployment rate stood at 10.6 percent. The controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing has come to central Ohio, allowing the state to participate in the nation’s energy production boom.
That, in turn, is leading to more industrial investment in the Buckeye State. As chronicled by writer Nelson Schwartz, Vallourec, a French industrial giant, recently completed a million square foot plant in Youngstown to make steel pipes for the energy industry, the first mill of its kind to open in the town in 5 decades. The facility cost $1.1 billion to build and will be joined next year by a smaller $80 million Vallourec plank that will manufacture pipe connectors. Consumer-oriented businesses that survived the lean years are also enjoying a resurgence. In early 2010, Youngstown’s unemployment rate was 13.3 percent. Today, it’s half that.
