CORRECTED: Decline in Multnomah County Employment VS 2020 Drags Down Portland Metro and State Employment Growth.

Corrected:

Reference period was not 2023 vs 2022, but 2023 vs 2020. I have changed text and table accordingly. 

--

During the quarterly meeting of the Oregon Employment Department Advisory Council (I am an appointed public representative) the Employment Department made a presentation on the current status of employment in Oregon.

One slide showed that, unlike most counties, Multnomah County employment was below last years employment. I did some follow up and looked at the detailed data. (Below I provide instructions and a link to download this data; all data is seasonally adjusted). 

Observations: (see table below for data)

• Multnomah county employment, vs 2020, was down 20,400 in Feb and 15,700 in March. 
• I calculate that outside the Oregon counties in the Portland Metro area in the Washington state counties in the Portland Metro area employment vs the prior year was up 25,540 in Feb. and 31,510 in March. 
• Despite the decline in Multnomah county total Oregon employment was up 14,600 Feb and 34,300 in March.
• I calculate that outside the 5 Oregon counties in the Portland Metro area in the other counties in Oregon employment vs 2020 was up 28,840 in Feb. and 38,410 in March. 
• It's not clear to me how these increases and decreases impact current or future housing demand.

 Instructions to retrieve data:

Open this link:  https://tinyurl.com/24r99e4u

Then, from the top of the menu to the right of the web page, select the indicated icon (see red arrow in pic below).

Then use the pulldown to select “All Areas for an Industry”. 

Then download the Excel file.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.