“The overall picture looks weaker” as Oregon’s unemployment rate hits 5%

By COURTNEY SHERWOOD/Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon’s jobless rate reached 5% in July, up from 4.2% a year ago. That’s the highest it’s been since the state recovered from COVID-19 lockdowns that pushed tens of thousands of people out of work in 2020.

Outside of that COVID spike — which pushed unemployment up to a high of nearly 14% in April 2020 before job levels recovered in mid-2021— a greater share of Oregon’s workforce is unemployed than at any time since 2016, according to figures released Wednesday by the state Employment Department.

The U.S. jobless rate, by contrast, was unchanged compared to a year ago, at 4.2% in July. The country is still creating more jobs than it’s cutting, but job growth is slowing nationwide according to a report that drew condemnation from President Donald Trump and prompted him to fire the messenger, former Commissioner of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer.

While the rest of the country adds jobs — albeit slowly — Oregon’s employment is shrinking.

“Manufacturing still had the steepest declines over the past year,” continuing a trend the state reported earlier in the year, said Gail Krumenauer, the state’s chief employment economist, in a briefing posted to YouTube Wednesday. Oregon manufacturers cut 9,400 jobs, which is a loss of 5%.

The information, private education, wholesale trade, finance and construction sectors all also reported notable drops in their workforces.

These losses reflect a trend the state has been watching for some time, Krumenauer said. “It’s just the overall picture looks weaker.”

That weakness may in part reflect significant layoffs across multiple companies over the past year, including at Oregon’s largest private employer, Intel, which eliminated 3,700 positions in the state over the course of two massive staffing cuts. At its peak, the semiconductor giant employed some 23,000 Oregonians.

Also over the past year, Wells Fargo has laid off more than 700 Oregon workers, and supermarkets Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyer have cut nearly 600 jobs across multiple stores.

Only two sectors have seen significant Oregon hiring: health care and social assistance, which added 9,800 jobs over the past year, and leisure and hospitality, which added 2,000.