Unemployment Number in Oregon Outnumbers Vacancies

Results from the Oregon Employment Department were recently released, showing that unemployment numbers are currently outnumbering the amount of job vacancies available within the state. The survey was conducted toward the end of 2011. Employers provided information on the amount of job vacancies available in October of 2011 for the state of Oregon. There were approximately 30,400 job vacancies at that period of time. However, at the same time, there were 176,400 unemployed individuals in the state of Oregon, which is equivalent to about 5.8 unemployed individuals per vacancy.

Some of the job vacancies in the state of Oregon included the health care sector and the social assistance sector. There were also about 14 percent of job vacancies within the retail trade sector and the waste services sector. There were over 4,000 available jobs for office and administrative jobs but some vacancies were scarcer than others. For example, there were only 105 job vacancies for life, physical, and social science.

The job vacancies were, on average, offering about $16.58 an hour. However, the wage that employees would actually earn depends on a number of factors. Such factors include their education and their occupation, along with licensing. Job vacancies that did not require individuals to have any educational training aside from a high school diploma or GED typically paid less than $15 per hour. However, positions require individuals to have some sort of degree after high school would typically pay $20+ an hour. Just about 60 percent of the job vacancies in Oregon did not require individuals to have any further education after completing high school.

With the 30,384 job vacancies available at that point in time, about 64 percent of those job vacancies were for full-time. Some of those jobs were only for seasonal work while some of the jobs were for permanent positions, in which the job was not seasonal or temporary. Around 30 percent of the jobs required individuals to have education that goes beyond a high school diploma or GED and about 32 percent of vacancies required some sort of certificate or licensing.

Some of the smaller employers accounted for nearly half of the job vacancies in the state of Oregon. However, it is the larger employers that are more willing to hire for long-term positions in which individuals are paid more for their work. Smaller employers often only hire for seasonal employees or part-time work, in which the individual is paid less.

In the state of Oregon, the Job Vacancy Survey has been done toward the end of the year every year since around October of 2008. The amount of job vacancies in the state for 2011 basically stayed the same from the previous year, in 2010.