By Ken Alltucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

No large county in America lost a larger chunk of its private-sector job base than Hamilton County at the onset of the economic recession, according to a Census report released today.

The report tracking business and job growth for all the nation's counties shows Greater Cincinnati's core county shed 2.4 percent of its jobs between March 2000 and March 2001, the steepest decline among the nation's 50 most populous counties.

Furthermore, only two of Greater Cincinnati's 13 counties - Butler and Dearborn - enjoyed a net job gain during that period, further evidence of how hard Greater Cincinnati was hammered by the slow economy.

The report doesn't count all working Greater Cincinnati residents.

Excluded are most government, railroad industry and agricultural positions, and the self-employed are absent in the Census Bureau's annual County Business Patterns economic snapshot.

But experts say the report is a relevant indicator of the crunch faced by Hamilton County and other Ohio urban counties in the months leading to the U.S. recession that started in March 2001.

"Hamilton County was clobbered even before the (national) recession started," said George Zeller, senior researcher of the Council for Economic Opportunities of Greater Cleveland, which studies Ohio's labor markets. "We have thousands of people across the state that don't have jobs."

Signs of an extended economic slump are visible throughout the Tristate: dozens of failed businesses, rising unemployment, a rapid increase in home foreclosures, stagnant sales tax collections and local governments facing budget gaps.

Other economic reports suggest the dismal job picture for Hamilton County and Greater Cincinnati hasn't improved much over the past two years.

The numbers of jobs in Greater Cincinnati have declined steadily since January 2001, a two-year lapse triggered by a slumping manufacturing sector, according to Richard Stevie, an economist with Cinergy Corp.

Stevie noted that Hamilton County faces the added competition of suburban counties that have enticed firms with incentives and newer offices or warehouses near the region's main interstates.

Moving across county line

Indeed, during the one-year period covered by the report, Hamilton County suffered the bulk of economic decline for the region - with a loss of 193 businesses and 13,156 jobs. That compares with Greater Cincinnati's loss of 365 firms and 18,592 jobs.

Many of the businesses that exited Hamilton County merely set up shop across a county line. Long-time Cincinnati employers such as Clopay Corp. and Thomson Learning moved hundreds of workers to suburban offices.

The report also doesn't cover the April 2001 riots and downtown boycott that followed, events that some say further clouded the county's economic prospects.

"I tend to think jobs are moving out of Hamilton County because businesses want to be farther from the city," Stevie said.

Other counties, too, fell victim to the poor economy. Kenton County dropped 73 firms and 132 jobs. Boone County felt the sting of the extended Comair pilots strike with a loss of more than 3,000 jobs.

"The main damage is people who have lost their jobs," Zeller said. "We have thousands of people across the state that don't have jobs."

The extended slump has created a personal burden for hundreds of working Hamilton County families, said Mary Hurlburt of Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Greater Cincinnati.

Couples that count on two incomes to pay off mortgages, car payments and credit cards often find themselves unable to pay all bills when one spouse loses a job.

"We're seeing more and more people having trouble with their bills," Hurlburt said. "Even when a (laid-off) person gets a new job, it's rarely what they were paid before."

A common result: foreclosure. Home forfeitures have posted double-digit increases every year in Hamilton County since the mid-90s, more than doubling since 1995.

Shortfall in tax revenue

The combination of heavy consumer debt and job loss often depresses sales tax collections for municipalities that depend on such funds to pay for public transportation and other improvements. Hamilton County is facing a significant shortfall for its half-cent sales tax increase passed in 1996 to pay for riverfront stadiums for the Bengals and Reds.

Nick Vehr, who heads the economic development efforts for the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, said it's "certainly not news" that Hamilton County's job base is declining.

"There is no question that our region is beginning to experience rather aggressive growth in the outer ring that is to some extent at the expense of the core," Vehr said.

But Vehr said the city and county's $1 billion-plus investment in new attractions - such as the stadiums and the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art - should help the core keep and retain jobs and residents.

How to woo firms

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune prescribes a fix that includes aggressive incentives offered to large employers and business development through the Hamilton County Development Co., which oversees a business incubator program and administers small-business loans.

David Main, president of the Hamilton County development group, has noticed a rapid increase in entrepreneurial activity during the slumping economy. His group is guiding several new business ventures, and small-business lending spiked 35 percent from a year ago.

"We're kind of like the canary of the economy," Main said. "We're again seeing an expansion in the number of companies that are forming. We see them coming back."

E- mail kalltucker@enquirer.com