(Oregon Employment Department)
The Salem area’s unemployment rate in January remained at 4% for the second month in a row, according to recent state data.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which doesn’t include impacts from seasonal patterns, steadily declined from 5.8% in May 2021 to 4% in December and January. The rate was 4.2% in November, according to Oregon Employment Department data, which includes all of Marion and Polk counties.
The seasonally adjusted number of unemployed people in the Salem area was around 8,400 in January, 36 fewer than in December, and has steadily fallen from around 12,250 in April, state data showed.
In January 2021, around 11,560 Salem area residents were unemployed.
Without seasonal adjustment, the unemployment rate grew from 3.5% in November and December to 4.6% in January.
The number of unemployed people – not seasonally adjusted – grew from 7,310 in December to 9,640 in January, according to state data.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
