Dating back to September 2021, Oregon’s unemployment rate has remained stubbornly consistent. That trend continued in the most recent jobs report released Tuesday by state officials.
That consistency comes as one of the most powerful factors on the state’s economy over the last two years — the COVID-19 pandemic — has been a rollercoaster of rising and falling cases and hospitalizations.
Even as the delta variant caused COVID cases and hospitalizations to spike last fall, and the highly contagious omicron wave continued to stretch hospital capacity and restrict businesses this winter, through it all the unemployment rate has moved relatively little.
At the end of last summer, the state joblessness rate was 4.5%. In January 2022, it was 4.3%, according to new numbers out Tuesday from the Oregon Employment Department.
That relatively flat line — just above 4% over the past several months — is in stark contrast to the sharp spike in unemployment when the pandemic first hit Oregon in March 2020, leading the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate to peak at over 13%.
Some sectors of the economy still haven’t fully recovered nearly two years after many businesses shut their doors and sent workers home.
While leisure and hospitality was the sector that added the most jobs in January — 2,200 according to new state numbers — economists say that sector has, “17,500 jobs left to recover to reach the prior peak month of February 2020.”
A few sectors lost jobs since the last report, which was noted by OED labor economist Gail Krumenauer in a video posted to the employment department’s web site. Others, she said, are showing “weakness.”
“Retail trade lost 800 jobs in January,” Krumenauer said. “And while private health care and social assistance only lost 200 jobs, we are seeing ongoing weakness adding jobs in all components of health care in Oregon,”
The pace of job creation appears to be slowing, judging by Oregon’s numbers over the last two months. Oregon saw fewer jobs created in January than was typical during a one month period last year. Just 5,700 jobs were created compared to the 2021 monthly average of 8,500. The new revised numbers from December 2021 — which showed 6,600 jobs added — were also below last year’s average.
Oregon’s unemployment rate for January was slightly above the national average of 4.0%.