Health care, IT and manufacturing industries are hiring in Ohio

Health care, information technology and manufacturing might be the best sectors in which to find one, staffing firms told theFederal Reserve Bank of Cleveland for its latest Beige Book report of economic conditions.

Don’t get too excited, though, as the Cleveland Fed found job placements over the past six weeks did not keep pace with openings because of difficulty in finding qualified applicants, especially for technical positions.

The Cleveland Fed’s report covers all of Ohio, eastern Kentucky, western Pennsylvania and the northern panhandle of West Virginia.

• Employment: The pace of hiring is expected to be modest across industry sectors this year, with some bias toward replacement. Newly created positions typically require a higher-level skill set than in the past.
• Manufacturing: Factory contacts reported that demand was little changed during the past six weeks. Suppliers to the aerospace, motor vehicle, and construction industries continue to see strong or strengthening demand. A sizeable number of Fed contacts indicated that they have increased their capital budgets over the period.
• Real estate: Year-to-date sales through March of new and existing single-family homes were moderately higher as compared to those of the same time period in 2014. The average sales price rose about 7 percent. First-quarter single-family construction starts were down compared to those of a year-ago.
• Consumer spending: Reports on retail sales were mixed. Contacts experiencing higher revenues over the period attributed them to lower gasoline prices and improvements in the weather and job market. That said, an apparel retailer noted that weak wage growth is a barrier to accelerated consumer demand.
• Banking: Business loan portfolios expanded, but at a slow pace. Demand was strongest for C&I and CRE loans.
• Energy: The number of drilling rigs operating in the Marcellus and Utica shales leveled out in April, after declining about 25 percent since late last year.

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