Oregon Public Broadcasting

The unemployment rate in Oregon has jumped dramatically.

David Cooke, an economist with the state Employment Department, says the jobless rate increased from 6.4 percent in September to 7.3 percent in October.

David Cooke: “The 9-tenths of a percentage point increase in Oregon’s unemployment rate was statistically significant. It was one of the highest over the month changes in decades.”

To be precise, you have to look back to April 1980 to find a jump that large in just one month. 

The jobless rate is also the state’s highest since August 2004.

The figures mean that about 40,000 fewer people were employed in Oregon this October, than at the same time last year.