Oregon Unemployment Worst in Nation

December 14, 2001, 03:15 PM

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By Abe Estimada, kgw.com Staff

The ranks of Oregonians looking for work showed no signs of relenting as the November unemployment rate climbed to 7.4 percent, which appears to be the worst in the country.

With the Oregon economy mired in recession for the first time since the early 1990s, about 125,400 people were without jobs in the state, according to figures released Friday by the Oregon Employment Department.

“The latest figures reflect widespread weakness in Oregon’s economy,” the department said. “All major industry sectors except services posted below-normal employment trends in November.”

November’s rate of 7.4 percent is a jump from the 6.5 percent in October. For now, Oregon’s unemployment rate may be the highest in the country.

Oregon will know definitively how it stacks up with the rest of the country when the U.S. Labor Department releases nationwide unemployment statistics next week, said David Cooke, an employment economist for the Oregon Employment Department.

According to the most recent numbers from the labor bureau, Washington’s October unemployment rate of 6.6 percent was the worst in the nation.

The 7.4 percent figure is the state’s highest since the tail end of Oregon’s last recession in July 1993, when the rate stood at 7.6 percent. The November numbers don’t take into account the Fujitsu flash memory plant closing in Gresham, where 670 people lost their jobs last month.

The ailing manufacturing, construction and retail sectors were the main drags on the state unemployment rate, Cooke said. Total manufacturing lost 6,400 jobs in November; construction shed 4,600 jobs between October and November.

Retail trade registered weak employment numbers in the last several months.

“This September’s employment levels started the holiday hiring season with 3,400 fewer workers than a year ago,” the employment department said.

The 125,400 unemployed Oregonians was up from the 53,400 people who were looking for jobs in November 2000.

The lack of economic diversity, a national recession, and Asia’s continuing economic troubles have combined to send Oregon’s economy into a tailspin, said Randall Pozdena, who serves on the Governor’s Council on Economic Advisors and managing director of Oregon-based ECONorthwest, an economics consulting firm.

If the state hasn’t hit bottom with its unemployment rate, it’s probably coming close, he said.

Oregon, for the most part, banked its fortunes on the high-tech industry to diversify its economy, Pozdena said. The state frowns upon heavy manufacturing or so-called “dirty industries,” leaving the economy with less legs to stand on.

It doesn’t help that Oregon is a small state that is easily buffeted by national economic tides. Though high-tech is being slapped around right now, it will be back, Pozdena said.

“It’s never good to be a little guy on the deck of a lurching boat, and that’s kind of where we are,” Pozdena said.

“Our recovery will be sharper, but our fall will be sharper,” he said. “It doesn’t make people feel better, but it does mean (Oregon) will recover more handily than the average state.”

However, November’s unemployment rate isn’t as bad as the downturn of the early 1980s, when high interest rates combined with a forest products and housing crash to hand Oregon its worst recession in state history.

Unemployment peaked in January 1983 at 12.4 percent when 182,300 people were without jobs, according to state employment department figures. In November 1981, the unemployment rate stood at 10.8 percent, which represented 143,900 people

“We have a ways to go before we’re that bad,” Pozdena said.