In July 35 of Oregon’s 36 counties saw drops in their unemployment rates, including Polk and Marion counties. (Courtesy/Oregon Employment Department)
In another signal that the economy is rebounding, the unemployment rate for the Salem area has dropped for the third month in a row.
Numbers released by the Oregon Employment Department on Tuesday put the area’s unemployment rate at 9.6% for July, down from the revised rate of 10.7% in June. Statewide, the unemployment rate in July dropped to 10.4%, down from June’s revised rate of 11.6%.
After the state numbers were released last week, state economist Josh Lehner said in a blog post that the recovery looks good even though it has slowed and remains in a “deep hole.”
“The current state of the labor market in Oregon is about as bad as it was at the worst of the Great Recession,” he said. “The data is no longer apocalyptic, or nearly so. It’s just really bad.”
Lehner added that a “silver lining” is that much of the job loss appears to be temporary.
For July, the Salem area had 18,000 fewer jobs, or 10% less, than it had in February before the pandemic ravaged the economy in March and April.
In July, nearly every private sector industry in the Salem area saw some rebound. Leisure and hospitality, an industry particularly hard hit by the pandemic, added 7,000 jobs, an increase of 6.9% from the last month. Food manufacturing added 3,000 jobs in July, a gain of 7.9%. Transportation, warehousing, and utilities added 400 jobs, a 6.6% increase.
However, according to the Employment Department, there were 3,600 fewer government jobs in the Salem area in July. Only 100 of those lost jobs were from state government. Local government jobs accounted for most of those losses. In particular, positions in local education accounted for 3,500 of those lost jobs.
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Contact reporter Jake Thomas at 503-575-1251 or [email protected] or @jakethomas2009.
