Bulletin E-Edition:
Deschutes jobless spike among highest in U.S.
By Keith Chu / The Bulletin
Published: February 07. 2009 4:00AM PST
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WASHINGTON — Deschutes County’s unemployment rate increased by 5.2 percentage points over the past year, one of the biggest jumps in the country, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report released this week.
The Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Deschutes County, saw unemployment increase from 6.1 to 11.3 percent from December 2007 to December 2008, the sixth biggest jump in the nation. It ranked behind Elkhart-Goshen, Ind.; Dalton, Ga.; Danville, Va.; Rocky Mount, N.C.; and Rockford, Ill.
While the unemployment rate spiked in the past year, the county lost only 320 jobs during that time, according to state statistics. The real problem is the area’s population has grown without a commensurate increase in jobs, said Economic Development for Central Oregon Executive Director Roger Lee.
Deschutes County grew from 160,810 people in July 2007 to 167,015 in July 2008, according to Portland State University’s Population Research Center.
“We really haven’t lost many jobs at all, if you look year over year,” Lee said. “The phenomenon we’ve seen here is what happens all the time, is they move here without jobs.”
Many employers appeared to put off job cuts in 2007, hoping that the economy would turn around, said University of Oregon economics professor Tim Duy. Then last year, they couldn’t wait any longer.
“The reality began to sink in to more and more employers that this was not a short-term event, that this was a longer-term, deeper event than they anticipated,” Duy said. “They just could not resist cutting jobs further.”
The populations in Crook and Jefferson counties were too small to qualify for the federal survey. But their unemployment rates were higher than Deschutes — 14 percent for Crook County and 13.3 percent for Jefferson County.
Lee, Duy and two other Oregon economists cited the region’s frozen housing market as the other overriding reason for the unemployment jump.
“The only story I can tell is kind of the obvious one that Bend saw a lot of job creation in the construction industry over the past few years, and that’s one of the areas that’s been hit the hardest,” Oregon State University economics professor Patrick Emerson said.
Central Oregon’s retirement population also plays a part in the bad news. The stock market’s plummet since the summer probably forced retirees who depend on investment income to cut back on spending, Emerson said.
“There are a lot of retirees in the Bend area, and it’s also quite likely that retirees who have fixed income have been hit hard by the stock market have probably pulled back,” Emerson said.
Those in the most financial trouble might decide to un-retire and go back to the work force, making the unemployment figures look even worse, Duy added.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said the unemployment report underscores the need to pass an economic stimulus bill and move on to aiding people facing foreclosure.
“When more than one out of every 10 workers in Bend is unemployed, we have to do everything possible to create jobs,” Merkley said in a statement. “Mortgage assistance and new jobs are both essential to arresting the economic free fall. That’s why it’s critical that we pass President (Barack) Obama’s economic recovery bill now, and turn to the challenge of developing a comprehensive strategy for replacing failing mortgages.”
The region’s economic troubles mean it is common sense that Central Oregon is in line to benefit from federal stimulus aid for people who’ve lost jobs, University of Oregon economist Mark Thoma said.
“If there’s a program where you’re unemployed, and you get money, if you have high unemployment, you’ll get more money,” Thoma said.
Senate Democrats and Republicans appeared to reach a tentative agreement Friday evening on the stimulus, and every version has included billions in medical benefits, food stamps and unemployment insurance for people who have lost jobs.
Central Oregon’s fall reflects the region’s meteoric rise during the boom years, Lee said.
“It still is remarkable over a period of, say, the last eight years, something on the magnitude of 20,000 jobs were created in tri-county area,” Lee said. “We’ve come a long way. We definitely have come back to earth.”
Keith Chu can be reached at 202-662-7456 or at kchu@bendbulletin.com.
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