Douglas County Economic Indicators - February 2025
The February 2025 edition of the Douglas County Economic Indicators is also available at this QualityInfo.org link.
Total employment was little changed in Douglas County over the last year. Government, private education and health care, and leisure and hospitality gained jobs, while trade, professional services, and mining, logging and construction employment declined. Most other industries saw little change. Seasonally adjusted unemployment was 5.2% in January 2025, 0.3 percentage points higher than the year before.
This month’s special topic is public education employment. The “local education” figures in Douglas County (and thus, much of the total of the “local government” estimate) are made up not only of all the local K-12 schools but also Umpqua Community College and several other higher ed institutions and campuses.
I used annual average data over the last twelve years to gauge employment levels in public education. Since education is a highly seasonal industry, the annual average better represents total employment change.
As one of the most heavily affected industries and last to reopen fully in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, employment levels declined substantially in 2020 and 2021. Since that time, though, job growth has been strong, and has now surpassed the peak employment seen in pre-pandemic years.
This month’s articles included:
African Americans in Oregon: A Labor Market Perspective on Quality Info
Top Occupations Oregon Employers Were Hiring in 2024 Job Vacancies on Quality Info
Federal Government Jobs in Oregon 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
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