Archive for April 2025
Southern Oregon’s Housing Crunch: A Growing Threat to Our Workforce and Local Economy
Southern Oregon’s Housing Crunch: A Growing Threat to Our Workforce and Local Economy In Southern Oregon, a healthy housing market is critical to sustaining our communities, supporting local businesses, and attracting a stable workforce. But as rental and homeownership costs soar across the state, Southern Oregon is not immune. The region is experiencing a tightening…
Read MoreOregon’s Multiple Jobholders in 2024
by Anna Johnson, Senior Economic Analyst, Oregon Employment Department April 8, 2025 In 2024, 127,000 Oregonians held more than one job in addition to their primary job and were considered multiple jobholders. The multiple jobholding rate – the proportion of multiple jobholders among all employed workers 16 years and older – was 6.0%, a continued increase…
Read MoreDifficult to Fill Job Openings in 2024
by Anna Johnson, Senior Economic Analyst, Oregon Employment Department April 8, 2025 What can employers do to find the workers they need? We looked for signals from our Oregon Job Vacancy Survey, which is designed to identify employers’ vacancies, which ones they have a difficult time filling, and to get a business perspective on why these…
Read MoreOregon’s Wood Product Manufacturing Industry Is Still Important, Especially in Rural Areas
by Brian Rooney, Regional Economist, Douglas and Lane counties, Oregon Employment Department April 18, 2025 Once Oregon’s largest manufacturing industry, employment in the wood product manufacturing industry has gone through large, well-publicized losses since the early 1990s. Its employment has dropped below that of computer and electronic manufacturing and food manufacturing in recent years, but it…
Read MoreMy thoughts on Tariffs
By Jim Teece I recently saw a video clip of Donald Trump from 1988 where he was on the Oprah Winfrey show, and he shared his thoughts on tariffs. His ideas then are what we are seeing him play out now, in his second term as President of the United States, some 37 years later.…
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