Economist weighs in on negative job growth in Portland

The losses give Portland the unfortunate distinction of having the largest job loss for that time period among the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. The top three cities for job growth were Las Vegas, Oklahoma City and Sacramento, according to a chart by Oregon State economist Jake Procino.

KGW reached out to Procino to ask what’s causing Portland’s decline. He said a big driver was layoffs at many large employers in the region, including Nike, Columbia, UPS, Vacassa and several others. Retirements have also been a contributor and have not been balanced by new arrivals because there has also been a stagnation in migration.

“So traditionally, in the recent past, Portland has seen a net inflow of migration,” he said. “But recently, we’ve seen a stagnation or an exit. So we’re not seeing any jobs being added because of people entering the workforce.”

Procino puts out a monthly newsletter with all kinds of economic indicators, much of it focused on Multnomah County, but also taking a broader look. Looking at the same time period county by county for northwest Oregon counties, Marion and Polk fared best with 2.8% job growth. Clackamas County was at the bottom with 0.6% negative growth, meaning job losses.

The greater Portland area still gained a lot of jobs last year, he noted, but not enough to offset the losses. But that means looking at aggregate numbers can obscure the fact that some industries are having a better time than others.

“For example, we’ve seen the health care sector add a ton of jobs recently,” he explained. “But because we’re losing more jobs in other sectors like manufacturing, retail trade or professional business services, we see the total job loss decrease.”

The estimate from the federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics is that the Portland area lost a net 14,600 jobs, but Oregon tracks the numbers more closely, Procino said, and state economists think the total number of losses was more like 6,000 rather than 14,600. But a smaller loss is still not a gain.

Another chart featured in Procino’s newsletter looks at the number of minimum wage jobs by county as of the third quarter of 2023. Multnomah County has the highest number of minimum wage jobs overall, though no longer large relative to its population; about 3.8% of jobs in Multnomah County are minimum wage, compared to 4.7% in Linn County, even though Linn County has the lowest overall number of minimum wage jobs in the region.