As Central Oregonians celebrate Memorial Day and its promise of summer weather to follow, the region’s employers are gearing up for their busiest months and wondering if they’ll have to scramble to find qualified workers like they did last summer.

”We’re still going to be seeing the similar forces acting upon us this year (as we did last year),” said Stephen Williams, regional economist for the Oregon Employment Department. ”There are a number of businesses here in Central Oregon that ramp up, starting now through August and September, and we’re hearing that they’re not getting all the (applicants) they need.”

This year, April unemployment rates were 4.6 percent in Deschutes County – lowest in the tri-county region – the same as last year, which was the county’s lowest rate on record. Williams expects the unemployment rate to drop even further this summer as job-seekers fill openings.

In a region where retailers struggle through shoulder seasons, summertime means more tourists, more sales and money to make up for the slow months. But finding qualified employees to handle the increased business has plagued employers in recent years, causing some to shorten hours or reduce services. To make matters worse, high gas prices are working against employers who try to lure commuter workers from farther away in the High Desert, Williams said.

”If your business isn’t centrally located, it’s hard to attract employees,” Williams said. ”There is a difficulty commuting across county lines.”

Gas prices and the low availability of qualified workers contributed to Erin McClaskey’s decision to close her Redmond Mountain Supply retail store. The Bend store remains open.

”It was harder to get boys to drive from Bend to (work at the) Redmond (store),” McClaskey said of her employees. ”Plus, they usually ride their bikes to work.”

Redmond’s Mountain Supply paid $10 per hour to start, McClaskey said, but that wasn’t enough to lure the quality of workers she needed.

”I just couldn’t get a qualified employee for the rate we can pay because of the price of housing and living in this area,” she said, adding that store sales were pretty good in the summer and winter and had just started picking up when her single full-time Redmond employee quit after having a baby.

Rising costs

Bend’s cost of living in the first quarter of 2007 was second-highest in the state behind the Portland metropolitan area, according to a national report released Friday.

As many employers have reported, McClaskey wishes she could pay her employees more, but that would mean raising costs for consumers. McClaskey needs to keep her prices low enough to compete with larger outdoor retailers like REI and Sportsman’s Warehouse.

”We have to match all prices in town and (larger competitors) just steal our business,” she said. ”And we can’t pay more, but the price of living is still going up.”

Williams says ”Help Wanted” signs are likely to reappear in storefront windows in the High Desert this summer, even though the hiring crunch isn’t new.

”Employers have been through this tight labor market before,” he said. ”(Many) have adjusted with what services they provide and the amount of labor they have now.”

The Village Baker in Bend was one of the businesses that cut hours last year due to staffing shortages. This year, the west-side bakery and cafe is still operating 12 hours shorter than it was earlier in 2006, but co-owner Lauren Kurzman says her employee retention is improving.

”Our (full) benefits package has helped retain people we were able to get last year,” she said. ”Also, people having the knowledge that we had these benefits attracted (more workers).”

Still, Kurzman has for two months been searching for employees to fill two full-time and two part-time positions.

”The one thing I keep seeing is there’s not as many teenagers (looking for work),” Kurzman said, adding that she noticed the same problem last summer.

Economic scene

Overall, economist Williams says Central Oregon continues growing, which creates jobs across all industries, with most summer jobs primarily in services. Central Oregon is getting more construction jobs, he said, but just not as fast as the past two years. Conversely, manufacturing jobs are thinning in the region.

Jobs in accommodations and food services always hire the most summer workers, according to a report from the Oregon Employment Department. In 2005, retail trade establishments hired 45,000 people in the state. And most of those were new hires – roughly 90 percent – compared with rehires.

Hundreds of manufacturing layoffs from the past year are still hurting the region’s manufacturing employment, Williams said. Those layoffs were concentrated among Bright Wood Corp., Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp. and Seaswirl Boats. Bright Wood and Columbia, however, have begun rehiring workers.

”We’ll see that shift over the course of the summer as those folks start finding work in other places,” he said. ”Some plants are hiring people back and some smaller manufacturers are always looking for good people.”

Central Oregon typically ramps up construction hiring in the summer, Williams added, which continues to hold this year, despite slowdowns in residential housing starts and building permits. Through April, 55 percent fewer building permits were issued in Central Oregon than during the same four months last year, according to Don Patton, owner of Cascade Central Business Consultants.

”We haven’t seen mass layoffs in construction,” Williams said. ”Year-over-year growth rates are a fraction of what they were a year ago, but they are still positive growth rates.”

Between February and April of this year, Deschutes County added 540 jobs in the construction field, Williams said. Last year, the county added 760 jobs during that time period.

Year-over-year growth for construction jobs in Deschutes County was 12.9 percent from April 2004 to April 2005, 21.4 percent from April 2005 to April 2006 and 6.4 percent from April 2006 to April 2007.

If the region’s construction activity continues to slow, construction jobs could decline, but Williams said the industry has not yet experienced a net year-over-year loss. That means there are still more construction workers in the industry than at this time last year, but that gap has been narrowing.

The Central Oregon economy remains strong because the booming population drives employment gains, Williams said.

”The whole idea is that we keep adding people to the base,” he said. ”When that continues to happen, employment just follows along.”