Douglas County Economic Indicators - April 2022
The April 2022 Douglas County Economic Indicators are attached to this email for your perusal.
Douglas County employment increased by 180 on a seasonally adjusted basis in March. Over the year total nonfarm employment was unchanged from its March 2021 level. Industries such as leisure and hospitality, other services, and retail trade added jobs in that time, balanced out by losses in industries such as professional and business services, transportation, warehousing and utilities, and construction.
Seasonally adjusted unemployment was 4.7%, which is very low on a historical basis, although elevated above the rate in Oregon (3.8%) and the U.S (3.6%). The county has regained 68% of the jobs lost in early 2020.
This month I wanted to use the special graph to look at the growth in Asian/Pacific Islander (API) workers in Douglas County. People who identify as Asian alone or Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander alone (that is, not including people of two or more races) made up less than 1% of the workforce in 1991. The API proportion of the workforce has more than doubled in the thirty years since, and the total number of API workers has more than tripled.
Oregon has a higher percentage of API workers of around 6% which is slightly lower than the U.S. (7% of workers). This grouping of all Asians and Pacific Islanders obscures important employment differences between the groups. Asian workers and Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander have substantially different characteristics in employment by industry, income, nativity, and education, not to mention differences within the racial groups.
This month’s articles included:
Manufacturing Employment is Important and Varied in Douglas County on Quality Info
Job Gains Amid COVID Waves: 2021 Year in Review on Quality Info
Winter 2022 Hiring Among Oregon’s Private Employers on Quality Info
As always, the Indicators contain all the latest economic data on our area. If you have a data question or want to learn more about any of these topics, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Henry L. Fields
Workforce Analyst/Economist
Serving Lane and Douglas counties
Oregon Employment Department
(541) 359-9178 | henry.l.fields@employ.oregon.gov