Oregon’s Tech Employment Stablizes, While Overall Unemployment Rises

Oregon’s unemployment rate jumped last month from 8.0 percent to 9.0 percent, according to December numbers out today from the state employment department.

However, the state’s rapid loss of tech jobs eased a bit. Oregon lost just 200 net jobs in November. In percentage terms, Oregon’s tech employment was down 4.1 percent from December ’07. That improves on a 4.4 percent drop from the prior year in November.

In December, Oregon’s seasonally adjusted non farm payroll employment declined by 9,700 jobs, following a drop of 8,400 in November. This was the fifth consecutive monthly loss of more than 4,000 jobs. Job losses have averaged nearly 9,000 per month over this five-month period. Payroll employment totaled 1,695,200 in December, which was a drop of 46,700 jobs or 2.7 percent since the highest such employment level 1,741,900 was reached in February.

In December, job declines continued in most of the major industries, as the following industries each shed about 2,000 jobs; leisure and hospitality (-2,700 jobs), construction (-2,100), manufacturing (-1,900), trade, transportation and utilities (-1,900) and government (-1,600). The only major industry posting a substantial job gain in December was educational and health services, which added 1,200 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis.

In December 174,819 Oregonians were unemployed, an increase of 69,966 from the December 2007 level of 104,853. December marked the largest number of unemployed since January 1983 when 176,815 Oregonians were unemployed.

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