Douglas County Economic Indicators - July 2025
- tcarpenter03
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
The July 2025 edition of the Douglas County Economic Indicators is attached and available at this QualityInfo.org link.
Over the year to June, Douglas County total nonfarm employment declined by 240. Manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and retail jobs lost ground over the year, while government and health care gained jobs. Unemployment has slowly ticked up over the year, and now stands at 5.9%, which is 0.6 percentage points higher than this time last year. While above its record low, the unemployment rate remains below the 20-year historical monthly average.
Most readers will know that forestry, logging, and wood products are important industries in Oregon and in our region. Building on Brian Rooney’s recent article on the forestry and logging industry, I looked at employment trends in the sector in Douglas County.
While forestry employment has declined over 25 years, Douglas County punches far above its weight in terms of job share. Douglas County has 12% of the state’s jobs in forestry and logging, compared to 2% of jobs overall. A significant portion of jobs are with the federal government, which in our area are also more seasonal than private forest sector jobs. The most recent data in this graph is from March 2025, and isn’t likely to take into account the full scale of job cutbacks at the federal level.
Forestry and logging includes establishments in natural resource management specifically, whereas jobs in wood product manufacturing or forest firefighting are included in other industries.
This month’s articles included:
Oregon's Nonprofits in 2024 on Quality Info
Growing Demand and Workforce Needs in Oregon’s Health Care and Social Assistance Sector on Quality Info
A Transition to an Employer-Driven Market in Oregon on 1859 Onward blog from Business Oregon
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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