South Coast Economic Indicators - January 2023

One of the changes the New Year brought was an upgraded infographic layout. Attached are the latest South Coast indicators for your viewing pleasure but you can also find them on Southwestern Oregon’s “regional page” at QualityInfo.

Southwestern Oregon Economy in a Nutshell:

We can look at employment changes from two different angles but both tell key narratives to better understanding employment trends. The attached economic indicator looks at employment compared to one year ago (December 2021 à December 2022). It’s important to also take note of over the month changes (November 2022 à December 2022); Coos and Curry’s labor markets both lost 60 jobs from November to December. In Coos County specifically, wood and food product manufacturing added 20 jobs each. Unemployment rates ticked up across the South Coast but remain near historic lows.

Graph of the Month: Industry Specialization: Location Quotients in Curry County

This month we take a look at employment ratios. Location quotients (LQ) are best used to compare local and national economies. If a LQ is near or equal to 1, the industry make up resembles the nations. If a LQ is greater than 1.25 it indicates a degree of specialization in that industry while a LQ less than 0.8 indicates the share of employment in that industry is less than the national share. The bigger the bubble size, the more prevalent that industry is to its local economy. In the graph above, natural resources and mining had a LQ of 3.23 so we can interpret that by saying, “jobs in natural resources and mining were 3.23 times more concentrated in Curry County than in the U.S. as a whole in 2021.” LQ information is also available for Coos County in the attached infographic.

In sum, location quotients are a valuable tool we can use to identify key industries within local economies since those industries with larger LQ’s tend to contribute to a regional economy’s overall growth prospects.

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