Lincoln County’s jobless rate in June rose 2 tenths of a percent to 11%. It was 10.9% in June of last year, so clearly the local unemployment rate is just bumping along the bottom. However, there was glimmer of hope in one deeper number. State Employment Department numbers show that logging and mining jobs rose 7% in June. Unfortunately, the rest of the categories were down compared to June of last year. Construction was off nearly 25% (-11.8 statewide), manufacturing of durable goods was off 4.5% (-3% statewide). Retail trade was down 1.4% (-1.3% statewide), Leisure and Hospitality -6.3% (+1% statewide), Financial Activities – 1.2% (-2.2 statewide), Local Government -3.2% (+.3% statewide), State Government -4.7% (+.6% statewide).
A view of Oregon’s construction industry by state employment department analysts indicate that jobs in the construction industry will gradually rebuild, but very slowly. They estimate that construction’s peak job numbers of 100,000 workers in mid-2007 will take more than ten years to recoup, if then. They predict 80,000 construction jobs statewide MAYBE by 2017. Today there are about 65,000 construction workers still on the job.
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