A road sign, pictured in summer 2017, welcomes people as they cross Oregon's southern border.
Oregon Department of Transportation
As Oregon leaders seek to revitalize the state’s business reputation, economists see conflicting signs about where Portland— and the state as a whole — is headed. The economic and population dips Oregon experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic have not entirely disappeared and the outlook is dour among those who live in the Portland metro area, according to a recent survey.
National attention on Oregon and its largest city has gone both ways in recent months: the President and others called the city war-ravaged during his attempt to deploy the National Guard, but the New York Times recently listed Portland as one of the top places to visit in 2026.
The mixed messages have also shown up in data snapshots recently released by several moving companies.
As 2025 came to a close, a number of national moving companies released analyses of people who used their services to move in and out of states across the country. The results varied company to company with United Van Lines listing Oregon as the top state people moved to in 2025. That result was cheered by some in Oregon as a sign of progress. However, according to a similar study by Atlas Van Lines, more people left Oregon than moved to the state last year.
Oregon state employment economist Gail Krumenaur is hesitant to rely on such studies for a comprehensive analysis of migration trends.
“One thing that I take caution with in studies like that is they are not fully representative of the entire set of folks who are either coming into or leaving the state in any given year,” Krumenaur said.
Krumenaur instead relies on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Portland State University’s Population Research Center. Each of the past few years the center has noted that migration to Oregon is the only factor driving an increase in the state’s population. That’s because birth rates in the state continue to decrease.
Last month when the center released its most recent estimates for June 2024 to June 2025, the researchers noted that Oregon saw a net migration of 17,000 — that means 17,000 more people moved into the state than moved out over that year. For a state of more than 4.2 million people, that’s not a large increase.
This figure represents an uptick from 2020 and 2021 when the pandemic slowed migration to the state, according to Huda Alkitkat, the manager for PSU’s population estimates program.
“Though net migration has increased following the COVID period compared to the pandemic years, the net migration in the middle of the previous decade (between July 2014 and June 2015) was approximately two and a half times the net migration between July 2024 and June 2025,” Alkitkat told OPB in an email.
In explaining the recent shifts, Krumenaur said that Oregon has historically been a “strong state for net in-migration” particularly between the 1980s and through the 2010s as people moved here from out of state.
That migration contributed to Oregon’s strong labor force. But things have changed in the past five years, Krumenaur said.
“In terms of the employment picture, Oregon has lagged the U.S. in the economic recovery and expansion,” she said.
Jake Procino works at the Oregon Employment Department with Krumenauer as an economist and workforce analyst. He notes population growth has a multi-faceted connection to economic expansion.
“Generally, population growth means that there are more workers available and more people to spend money both of which grow an economy,” Procino said via email. “It also generally means a larger tax base to pay for government infrastructure like schools, roads and transportation.”
The mixed population numbers come as Oregon leaders want to boost the state’s economy through initiatives like Gov. Tina Kotek’s prosperity roadmap. Economists note that in-migration can play a helpful role, but it’s not the only factor impacting Oregon’s workforce.
“There’s a population piece that can help supply labor force,” Krumenaur said. “That’s a connection that’s been there a long time. Another piece that is possible is the labor force participation rate.”
The labor force participation rate refers to the share of people who are either working or actively seeking work. In Oregon, that rate has hovered around 63% for the past year. Until about 20 years ago, Oregon’s rate was several percentage points above the national average. Since 2012, Oregon’s labor force participation rate has been lower than the national average, but as far as economic initiatives go, Krumenaur said there are ways Oregon could increase that rate.
