By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Job creating agencies in Ohio are trying to find ways to help the state emerge from the COVID crisis in better shape than other states.
“How do we turn lemons into lemonade?” Terry Slaybaugh, vice president of JobsOhio, said last week during a conference call with area officials including the Wood County Commissioners.
JobsOhio officials believe the state can emerge from the pandemic as a leader in economic development. And that means helping grassroots governments.
“We know you’re all facing extraordinary challenges right now,” Slaybaugh said.
“The impact of the pandemic, we have all felt it,” Slaybaugh said. “No one has had to deal with a greater challenge than probably you at the local level.”
JobsOhio has tried to help with the following programs:
- $250 million for personal protective equipment. A total of $70 million was spent on 40 million units of gloves, masks, gowns and other items.
- $30 million for the liquor buyback program since Ohio shutdown non-essential businesses the week before St. Patrick’s Day and the NCAA tournament. So the state offered to buy back liquor, and about 900 businesses took up the state’s offer.
- $10 million to help maintain airlines.
- $4 million for a loan deferment program.
- $50 million for a workforce retention loan program.
- Investments from the state went to some Wood County companies, including First Solar, Amazon, Walgreen, Vehtek, NSG Glass North America, and the Home Depot distribution center.
“These programs didn’t exist,” said Phil Greenberg, of JobsOhio. By moving quickly, the agency was able to deploy help quickly. “To be able at the end of the day to help people.”
“This is going to have a long-lasting impact,” Greenberg said.
As for turning lemons into lemonade, Slaybaugh said JobsOhio is looking for ways to help Ohio survive the pandemic better than other states.
“We have a great workforce. We have great companies in Ohio,” he said. “We know we have great production in Ohio.”
So now is the time to push that message even more than before.
“We want to make Ohio accessible and available to companies,” Slaybaugh said. “We want Ohio to emerge as a leader in the country.”
Moody’s has projected that recovery in the U.S. will be slow – possibly not until the third quarter of 2023, he said.
“We know that the recovery is going to take a lot of effort,” Slaybaugh said. “How can we put Ohio back to work? How can we get people employed who are unemployed?”
One major problem that became even more obvious during the pandemic was the missing links in Ohio supply chains. JobsOhio is working on reshoring supply chains, Slaybaugh said.
The state is also putting renewed focus on hanging onto its college graduates, he said.
“Unfortunately, a lot of those graduates aren’t staying in Ohio,” he said of STEM grads. So efforts are being made to market Ohio as a place for STEM graduates.
And work is being done to address broadband challenges.
“The pandemic has made it even more obvious that there are problems,” Slaybaugh said.
