The State of Oregon Employment Department’s year-end release reported the Central Oregon region netted over 2,700 new jobs through the course of the year. The vast majority of these gains were in Deschutes County, which recovered from the recession early in 2015 and continued to expand through the end of the year. In January 2015, Oregon’s unemployment rate was 5.9%. The latest press release reports a drop in Oregon’s unemployment rate to 5.1 percent in January 2016.
“Oregon’s labor market is as good as it was during previous expansions,” said Nick Beleiciks, Oregon’s state employment economist. “The unemployment rate is now lower than it was in most of the mid-2000s and nearly as low as in the mid-1990s. Oregon is adding jobs at a faster rate than during the mid-2000s, and the number of jobs added over the last year is on par with growth during the mid-1990s.” Read the full release here.