{"id":493853,"date":"2025-10-12T15:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493853\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T15:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:10:11","slug":"oregon-underemployment-is-rising-rapidly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493853\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon \u2018underemployment\u2019 is rising rapidly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oregon\u2019s jobless rate has been climbing steadily for more than two years, inching up to 5.0% amid a historic wave of layoffs<\/a> among big employers and a general cooling off in the state\u2019s labor market.<\/p>\n

That slowdown is extending to people who have jobs, too, but are working less than they\u2019d like. These are people with part-time jobs, who could rather be working full time, and others who have recently given up looking for work.<\/p>\n

This so-called \u201cunderemployment\u201d rate (economists classify it as the U-6 rate) began rising rapidly in Oregon last spring. It\u2019s now at 9.3%, the state\u2019s highest level of underemployment in four years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Neither the standard unemployment rate, nor underemployment, are especially high by historical standards. <\/p>\n

Oregon\u2019s U-6 rate topped 20% in 2009 and 2010, as the Great Recession walloped the state\u2019s economy. It briefly hit those levels again in 2020, in the pandemic\u2019s early days, then rapidly fell to an all-time low<\/a> of 6.6% in 2023. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s just two years ago, but Oregon\u2019s labor market was much hotter then, when employers were struggling to find employees and workers had their pick of jobs.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s concerning now is how quickly both unemployment and underemployment are rising, both up by double-digit percentages on an annual basis in recent months.<\/p>\n

And, increasingly, Oregon\u2019s labor market is diverging from the broader U.S. economy. The state\u2019s U-6 rate has been rising twice as fast as the national increase since last spring, indicating Oregon workers are more vulnerable to the softening economy.<\/p>\n

This is Oregon Insight, The Oregonian\u2019s weekly look at the numbers behind the state\u2019s economy. View past installments here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oregon\u2019s jobless rate has been climbing steadily for more than two years, inching up to 5.0% amid a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[51,897,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-493853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115361836320949707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}