Douglas County Economic Indicators - February 2023
The February edition of the Douglas County Economic Indicators is attached and available on Quality Info.
Douglas County job growth continued from January 2022 to January 2023. Recent revisions to Oregon’s estimates showed a slower, albeit still positive, growth rate over the year. Douglas County employment grew by 1%, led by job gains in health care, education, and other services. Industries showing declines included financial activities and professional and business services. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.7%, 0.6 percentage points higher than January of last year.
The special graph this month examines how much workers who changed jobs in 2021 gained in earnings. In short – a lot, on average.
For people leaving a job in any industry, the median gain was about 20% in earnings. That percentage ranged from much higher for those who started in lower paying industries (+45% for arts, entertainment and recreation workers) to a slight decline in high-paying, relatively small industries such as management and utilities. Note that the graph displays workers by industry they started out in, and the worker might have stayed in the same industry or moved to a different one. This also only looks at workers who moved from one job to another with a brief or nonexistent spell of unemployment.
This month’s articles included:
Child Care Employment is Crawling Back on Quality Info
Oregon Economic Update: Not out of the Woods Yet on Quality Info
Oregon Economic and Revenue Forecast, March 2023 on Oregon Office of Economic Analysis blog
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
Comments