Quinton Smith Al Pazar of Florence, captain of the F/V Tempo and deckhand Deston Deohaye offload dozens of crab pots at the Port of Newport in April after wrapping up their 2023-24 Dungeness crab season and switch over to fishing for Chinook salmon.

By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews

Oregon’s commercial fishing industry had a solid, if not record-breaking, year in 2023, according to a new report from the state Employment Department.

Statistics covering everything from pounds of seafood landed, revenues from individual fisheries and total employment showed strong signs of at least keeping up with historical averages, said the report’s author, Shaun Barrick, a workforce economist for Lincoln, Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook counties.

“Typically, commercial fishing in Oregon is really a mixed bag because of how many species we target,” Barrick said. “But, as always, it’s hard to overstate how important it is for employment. And the cultural impact of fishing is huge.”

Here are some numbers highlighting Barrick’s report.

**Total landings and value of all commercial fishing rebounded in 2023 after a down year — mostly from crab — in 2022.**

Commercial landings and revenue

The 301 million pounds of seafood landed were worth $178 million. That was an increase from 2022, where 286 million pounds of seafood worth, when adjusted for inflation, $136 million.
Still, the 2023 numbers were below the average landings and revenue of the prior five years (2018-2022) of 319 million pounds and $189 million.
Crab harvests in 2023 were twice as large as the previous five-year average of 18.3 million pounds, and far larger than the 4.9 million pounds landed in the late-opening 2022 season.
The average landed price per pound for Dungeness crab was $2.80 in 2023, the lowest seen since 2013’s $2.74.

“Generally, I think the price gets dropped that low due to large amounts of imported crab,” Barrick said. “Last year’s dollar value was definitely low.”

Salmon landings dropped nearly 20 percent last year to 1.7 million pounds. That was more than the previous five-year average of 1.4 million pounds, but below the average of the 2000s and 2010s.
A pink shrimp harvest of 44 million pounds – an increase of 7 percent from 2022 – was above the average of the previous five years. Even so, shrimp prices fell to 42 cents per pound in 2023, their lowest level since 2010.
The albacore tuna harvest dropped last year to its lowest level since the early 2000s. Just 2.45 million pounds of albacore were landed in Oregon in 2023, the lowest volume since 1991.

**Lincoln County had the most people employed in commercial fishing of the six Oregon coast counties with commercial ports.**

Employment

Excluding tribal fishing, an estimated 1,212 people worked in Oregon’s commercial fishery on an annual average basis in 2023. That represented a slight decrease of 15 jobs from 2022 numbers, but was very similar to the annual average of fishers in Oregon since 2020.
The estimated 310 fishery workers last year in Lincoln County topped all other counties, with Clatsop, Curry, Coos and Tillamook counties taking spots two through five. Those five counties, combined, had 95 percent of the total employment.
Surprisingly, non-coastal Jefferson County had a handful of people employed in commercial fishing. “These jobs are sometimes based on crayfish harvests,” according to the report.

Revenue

Some 796 vessels had at least one landing in 2023, down from 861 the year before.
Those vessels averaged about $224,000 each in landed value in Oregon in 2023, up by 42 percent from the previous year.
Each vessel supported about 1.5 workers on an annual average basis.
The 39 seafood processors in Oregon in 2023 surpassed the previous high point of 36 in 2019. The processing industry paid more than $49 million in wages in 2023, “which clearly shows the benefit of adding value to raw natural products,” according to the report.