November 19, 2009
Jobs: Still waiting for the recovery
By RaeLynn Ricarte
for The Chronicle
Editor’s note: The Chronicle launches a new occasional series today with two stories on how the recession is affecting people in the Columbia Gorge.
Unemployment rates in Wasco and Hood River counties have risen by at least 40 percent during the past year but Dallas Fridley, regional economist, is hopeful that “the worst is behind us.”
“Jobs really haven’t shown much of a recovery yet but we aren’t losing them at the tremendous pace that we did in 2008,” said Fridley, who works out of the Oregon Employment Department’s office in Hood River.
In September, the last month that OED numbers are available, the unemployment rate for Wasco County was 8 percent; almost double the figure for that same month in 2007 when the economy was still strong. The jobless rate for Hood River County in September was 6.6 percent, more than double the number for 2007.
Fridley said the late summer percentages in both gorge counties are at or near the low-point for the year because hundreds of harvest jobs were available in the agricultural sector. He said the October figures should also be lower than at other times of the year for the same reason.
The unemployment rate for Oregon as a whole now stands at 11.3 percent and has fallen nearly a percentage point from a high of 12.1 percent in May, according to OED reports. The national jobless rate climbed to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level in 26 years and up nearly a half percentage point from 9.8 percent in September.
Fridley said the diverse job base in Wasco and Hood River counties has helped these areas weather tough economic times better than other locations. For example, Harney County in southeastern Oregon is dependent upon natural resource and construction jobs and currently has an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent.
Fridley said the “lion’s share” of Hood River County’s job losses this year have been in manufacturing, a reduction of about 240 positions. Since many of these jobs were added during a stronger economic period in late 2007 and early 2008, Fridley said it is not surprising that the number of staff reductions would be higher than usual.
He said the food service, lodging, logging and construction industries in Hood River have also seen cutbacks due to the recession. The bright spot on the economic front, said Fridley, is that education and health services reported 20 job gains over the past year. Plus, he said the Columbia Gorge Hotel recently reopened and is not only providing jobs, but bringing clients to other tourism-related businesses.
In Wasco County, the greatest number of job losses tallied by OED was in the retail trade, with 80 positions eliminated during 2009. Construction factored in second in the number of employee reductions, with a cutback of 70 jobs during the past 12 months.
“I think it will be 2011 before we get back to 2008 job levels because we really aren’t adding right now,” said Fridley. “However, I think the gorge is a place where people want to live, a destination, so if they can figure out a way to make a go of it they are going to stay.”
Dana Schmidling, executive director of the Wasco County Chamber of Commerce, said retailers in and around The Dalles are “hanging on and hoping for a good holiday season.”
“I think we have our own macro economy going here so things are not as bad as they are in other places,” she said. “Plus, our stores have the asset of being able to add the personal touch to their service, which really makes a difference when people are thinking more about how they are going to spend their discretionary dollars.”
Schmidling said there haven’t been a lot of business closures in The Dalles, the bowling alley in the downtown area was the last major closure, so she takes that as a good sign that entrepreneurs are holding their own.
“People are hanging on and trying to get to the other side and I believe the turnaround is right there, we just have to get around this corner,” she said.
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