Oregon Blue Book: Oregon's Economy: Overview

Oregon's Economy: Overview

A footbridge at the Japanese Garden in Portland. (Photo courtesy Thomas Chamberlin)

Oregon’s economy shadowed the national slowdown that began in the second half of 2007. The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for Oregon bottomed out at 5 percent in the spring of 2007 and increased to 5.5 percent by June 2008. The national unemployment rate fluctuated around 4.5 percent in the first half of 2007 then climbed until it matched Oregon’s rate for June 2008 – the first time the state’s rate was as low as the nation’s since May 1996. Competition for jobs decreased slightly in recent years even with the state’s continued population growth. From 2005 to 2007 Oregon’s working age population grew 3.8 percent, while employment grew 4.4 percent.

During the past two decades, Oregon attempted to make the transition from a resource-based economy to a more mixed manufacturing and marketing economy, with an emphasis on high technology. Oregon’s hard times of the early 1980s signaled basic changes had occurred in traditional resource sectors — timber, fishing, agriculture — and the state worked to develop new economic sectors to replace older ones. Most important, perhaps, was the state’s growing high-tech sector, centered in the three counties around Portland. However, rural Oregon counties were generally left out of any shift to a new economy. When the boom of the 1990s collapsed, Oregon was again confronted with high unemployment, widespread hunger, and a diminishing safety net of social services. The state lost about 43,000 payroll jobs from 2000 through 2003 – many of them high-tech manufacturing jobs in the Portland area. As with the nation, Oregon’s expansion from 2004 through 2007 was fueled by growth in construction and services; construction alone added about 21,000 jobs during the period. The subsequent collapse in the residential mortgage market in late 2007 ended the employment expansion in February 2008.

Oregon employment has been affected by changes to export and import levels, shifts in production to other countries, and liberalization of international trade. The Trade Act programs—Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and Alternative Trade Adjustment Assistance (ATAA)— help individuals who have become unemployed as a result of increased imports from, or shifts in production to, foreign countries. Between the beginning of 2002 and the end of 2007, the U.S. government issued 204 Trade Adjustment Assistance certifications relating to Oregon layoffs. These certifications qualify laid-off workers for special help finding work, including re-employment services, training, and job search and relocation allowances. During the same time period, there were 9,754 certifications issued nationwide, meaning Oregon’s certifications accounted for 2 percent of the national Trade Adjustment Assistance certifications.

More difficult to gauge is the benefit to Oregon companies and employees of exports, imports, and changes in trade regulation. The value of exports from Oregon to foreign countries rose by almost 50 percent between 2004 and 2007. It topped $16.5 billion in 2007, about 10 percent of the state’s $158.2 billion gross state product. Of course, Oregon’s trade with other U.S. states far exceeds its trade with foreign nations.

Oregon's top ten commodities in 2007