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Oregon's Economy: Employment
Crater Lake in March. (Photo courtesy Travis C. Peterson)
Oregon’s labor force is nearly two million strong. Four out of five of the state’s working age population is involved in the labor force. Some are currently looking for a job, many are working for themselves, and roughly 1.6 million are employees working at the nearly 130,000 business establishments across the state. Employment in trade, transportation and utilities accounts for nearly one in five Oregon jobs, making them the state’s largest industries. Federal, state and local government jobs are the next largest group, followed by private education, health services, and professional and business services.
Since 2000, Oregon experienced two recessions which kept the state from seeing employment growth during the decade. Nearly every industry was hit hard, but a few were able to grow despite the turbulent economy. Private education, driven by the growing population, and health services, driven by an aging population, added a combined 51,000 jobs during the decade growing at an average annual rate of 3 percent. Leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants, hotels and recreational activities, added 15,000 jobs and grew at an average annual rate of 1 percent. Other services, which include businesses such as repair and maintenance shops, personal and laundry services, and religious and membership organizations, was the only other industry to add jobs. Government added 21,000 jobs during the decade, the bulk of which were local education, state education or tribal jobs.
Employment in some of Oregon’s traditional industries did not fare so well during the recessions of the decade. Mining and logging, an industry with employment in steady yet slow decline for decades, lost 30 percent of its jobs. The manufacturing industry shed one quarter of its jobs during the decade. Wood products workers lost the most jobs, followed by computer and electronic workers and then by transportation equipment workers. Food manufacturing was the only manufacturing sector that was able to add jobs in the midst of the recession. The information industry was hit hard by both recessions of the decade and lost 17 percent of its workers over the decade.
The construction industry rode a wave of housing demand starting in 2004 that led to growth beyond its historical share of total employment. The growth peaked in 2007 and then crashed with the bursting of the “housing bubble.” This brought construction employment back down to near its traditional share of employment, but still nearly 10,000 fewer jobs than at the start of the decade. The financial activities industry, which is closely tied to the real estate market, experienced a boom and bust in employment similar to the construction industry, and employment levels in 2010 were about equal to where they were at the beginning of the decade.
Oregon’s top ten employment industries (2009)