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Oregon Unemployment Rate Hits Lowest Level Since 2008

NWNews | By Chris Lehman,
Chris Lehman
Published December 17, 2013 at 4:07 PM MST

Oregon's unemployment rate is at its lowest in more than five years according to numbers released by the Oregon Employment Department Tuesday.

Oregon's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 7.3 percent in November. That's down a full percentage point from one year ago, and is the lowest monthly rate since September 2008.

But state employment economist Nick Beleiciks says the number of people looking for work is still higher than before the economic crash.

"Employers are adding jobs as fast as we might expect them to," he says. "So there's enough job growth going on, but there's still a lot of competition for those jobs because there's still a lot of unemployed people."

Beleiciks says the strongest job gains in Oregon continue to be in retail and construction.

Copyright 2021 Northwest News Network. To see more, visit Northwest News Network.

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Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.
See stories by Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.

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