The statewide unemployment rate inched down to 3.7 in April, dropping one-tenth of a percentage point from 3.8% in March, Oregon Employment Department data showed.
The rate is nearing the state’s record low of 3.4%, which the department recorded each month from November 2019 to February 2020, according to a press release.
Throughout the past two years, Oregon and the nation have experienced similar trends as their economies and labor markets have recovered from the pandemic recession.
Both the statewide and U.S. unemployment rates spiked to more than 13% by April 2020 before dropping to below 7% six months later. Both also lost about 14% of payroll jobs between February and April 2020, before recovering about one-third of those jobs three months and continuing to gradually recover.
But Oregon is slightly lagging behind the U.S. in overall jobs recovered, the press release said. The U.S. added back 95% of jobs lost during the pandemic, while Oregon has recovered 88% of jobs lost.
Oregon’s seasonally adjusted employment, which doesn’t include impacts from seasonal patterns, shows the state added 4,200 jobs in April after gaining 7,000 jobs in March. In April, the largest gains were 1,800 jobs added in health care and social assistance, 1,300 in manufacturing and 1,300 in professional and business services. The only major industry that cut at least 1,000 jobs was “other services,” which lost 1,000, according to the release.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
