State jobless rate jumps
Oregon now a contender for highest rate in the nation
By Ryan Kost
/ The Associated Press
Published: April 14. 2009 4:00AM PST
TUALATIN — Oregon’s jobless rate has taken a dramatic jump to 12.1 percent — a rate seen only once before since the state began collecting uniform data in the mid-1970s.
The increase could saddle Oregon with the highest unemployment rate in the nation when those figures are released on Friday, state labor economist Art Ayre said.
Michigan currently has the highest rate, at 12 percent. Oregon’s comparable figure from February, 10.7 percent, tied it for third.
The state’s jobless rate has risen, now, 14 months in a row, and has averaged a 1 percent increase for the past five months. A year ago the unemployment rate was 6 percent.
“The news, as you might expect, is not good,” Ayre said Monday. “With those large increases, obviously, we are well above where we were one year ago.”
The state Employment Department said the March jobless figure in Oregon matches that of November 1982, which was the high point of the recession of the early 1980s.
The current rate is also well above the national average for March, 8.5 percent, Ayre said.
He said it was the widest gap between the state and national rates since the state began collecting comparable data.
A part of Oregon’s ballooning unemployment rate is a result of a labor force that’s steadily been growing, Ayre said.
While other states, such as Michigan, have seen the number of people seeking work decrease, more and more Oregonians such as spouses who hadn’t been working and people whose investments have been damaged are going into the labor market.
When they don’t find work, they swell the jobless ranks and percentages.
Job losses were clustered in three major sectors: construction; manufacturing and trade; and transportation and utilities.
Although Monday’s numbers offered little hope going into the future — economists don’t expect gains until 2010 — Ayre said the state may have already seen the bulk of the job losses in the current recession.
The latest numbers represent 14,000 more people struggling to find work, for a state total of more than a quarter million unemployed. Of those unemployed, about 180,000 are receiving some sort of state aid.
The lobby was busy at the WorkSource center in Tualatin where the Employment Department announced the newest numbers. People scanned computers looking for jobs. Others waited for job-hunting seminars to begin.
Shirley Elicker, a 61-year-old Beaverton resident, has been out of work for two months. She used to do secretarial work for a church, but as the economy turned darker, she offered to leave. “I willingly stepped into this monster,” she said.
Of course, she knew it was a bad time, but she figured a month on the job market and she’d find something. Now she’s hoping two more months is all it’ll take.
“It can be very overwhelming and depressing,” she said. “But if you keep yourself busy and you keep looking, you have a better outlook.”
ARTICLE ACCESS: This article is among those available to all readers. Many more articles are available only to E-Edition members.
Sign up today!
