Oregon’s Labor Market Largely Unchanged in May, June 17

Oregon’s unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.3 percent in May compared with 5.2 percent in April. This kept the state’s rate close to the national level, as the U.S. unemployment rate was 5.5 in May and 5.4 percent in April. An unemployment rate close to 5 percent is near the lowest Oregon’s rate has been over the past 40 years. The rate did reach similar levels during four prior periods of economic expansion since the 1980s, but Oregon’s rate never dropped substantially below 5 percent. The record low in the series, which dates back to 1976, occurred in January and February 1995, when the rate dropped to 4.7 percent. Payroll employment growth paused in May, posting a seasonally adjusted decline of 1,400, the first monthly drop since September 2012. But this one-month decline is not an indicator of continued job losses. Despite the one-month decline in jobs, payroll employment was still up substantially over the year, having added 50,500 jobs, or 2.9 percent, since May 2014. Taking a breather from rapid growth in recent months, most industries hired close to their normal, seasonal numbers of jobs in May. Retail trade was the biggest exception as it added only 700 jobs in May, when an increase of 2,100 is its seasonal norm.