South Coast Employment Lagging Pre-Pandemic Total – Oregon Employment Dept. report – Coos County total payroll employment rose by 320 jobs in August. Professional and business services had the largest estimated gain, up by 200. Smaller private-sector gains were tallied in transportation, warehousing, and utilities (+30); retail trade (+30); and private education and health services (+20). Manufacturing employment dipped by 30 jobs, with 20 of the loss in wood product manufacturing. Government employment gained 40 jobs in August, with gains in local government (+40), state government (+10) offset slightly by a decline of 10 in federal government. Coos County total payroll employment fell by 190 jobs over the past year. The largest drop was in professional and business services which lost 90 jobs. Private education and health services (-40); mining and logging (-40); manufacturing (-20); and transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-20) showed job losses since August 2021. Retail trade (+60); leisure and hospitality (+40); wholesale trade (+20); and construction (+20) had job increases over the year. Curry County payroll employment grew by 30 jobs in August. Leisure and hospitality gained 20 jobs while smaller changes across a number of sectors left the county’s employment total up just slightly for the month. Over the past year, Curry County payroll employment rose by 70 jobs. Gains were estimated in leisure and hospitality (+70); construction (+30); and other services (+10). Job losses were posted in wood product manufacturing (-20); financial activities (-20); and health care (-10). The South Coast area is still down 1,000 payroll jobs from the total in August 2019.
