The Oregon Employment department reports (pdf) that the state’s unemployment rate for October 2009 was 11.3 percent. That is unchanged from September.
Oregon is now has the 6th highest unemployment in the U.S.
The increase in unemployment rate is due to an decrease in the number of people working. Offsetting this decline was that 1,080 people have left Oregon’s workforce.
Most of the “improvements” in Oregon’s unemployment can be explained by a shrinking work force as people give up looking for work in the state or move out of the state.
Oregon’s Employment Department seems mystified by Oregon persistently high unemployment. In this memo (pdf), they provide a mishmash of reasons for Oregon’s high unemployment rate, including:
- Oregon’s labor force is small (but other “small” states have very low unemployment);
- Oregon has nice weather;
- More seasonality in employment (which suggests that Oregon has nice weather, but only part of the time).
As noted in earlier posts, Oregon’s unemployment problems are largely the result of policies that discourage hiring and employment:
- Oregon’s persistent unemployment problem explains Oregon’s unemployment problem.
- Oregon’s unemployment: Why is it always so high? follows up on the previous post.
- Impact of minimum wage indexing demonstrates that Oregon’s high minimum wage contributes to reduced employment, especially among younger workers.