Here is The Oregonian’s weekly look at the numbers behind the state’s economy. View past installments here.
Oregon shed an astonishing 271,000 jobs in the first month of the pandemic as the state’s jobless rate spiked to an unprecedented 13.2%.
The vast majority of those job losses, though, were classified as temporary. Workers anticipated going back to their old jobs as the pandemic receded. And, through February, Oregon had recovered slightly more than half the jobs it initially lost as the jobless rate dropped to 6.1%.
Even as the state steadily reopens, though, Oregon is still recording an average of more than 7,000 layoffs a week – double the pace of weekly job loss before the pandemic.
Especially worrying to economists is that a greater share of these layoffs are permanent, meaning that workers don’t expect they’ll ever go back to their old jobs.
In February, 43% of laid-off workers classified their job loss as permanent. That’s the highest share since the pandemic began.
With vaccination rates accelerating rapidly, there is considerable optimism that the worst of the pandemic’s economic damage is already in the past. Many bars, restaurants, movie theaters and hotels have reopened and thousands of service workers are back on the job.
That’s the low-hanging fruit, though, recalling workers back to jobs at businesses that survived the pandemic.
Restaurants, bars and merchants that shut down forever during the pandemic won’t be calling anyone back, of course.
So even if the jobless rate continues to fall, if the share of permanent layoffs keeps climbing that will create an overhang for the recovery as those workers seek a new path. That could make it much harder for Oregon to recover what it has lost.
-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699