Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon’s unemployment rate is at an all time high - 12.1 percent.  As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, it's been there before, but not for 27 years.

The jobless rate jumped to 12.1 percent in March.

The Oregon Employment Department says the rate did reach the same level in 1982, but has never been higher -- even when considering historical records dating back to shortly after World War II.

State employment economist, Art Ayre, says that each of the last three months has seen jumps of more than one full percentage point.

Art Ayre: “These are extremely large compared to the historical record. If we go back to the 2001-2003 recession, the largest over the month change was 0.4 percentage points. Similarly a 0.4 percentage point increase was the largest that we saw in the 1990’s recession. If we go back to the 1980’s recession, we see a 1.1 percentage increase over the month in April 1980. So that was the largest we saw in that period.  And we’ve exceeded that in January and March this year. So very large over the month percentage point changes.”

Check out our map of recent layoffs around the Northwest

Such changes have rocketed Oregon’s jobless rate high above the national average -- 8.5 percent.  Ayre says the difference between Oregon’s rate and the nation’s is now the biggest since modern day records began more than 40 years ago.

Normally, he says, employers add jobs during this time of the year:  the building season starts as the weather improves -- so construction workers get hired; People start thinking about summer vacations -- so leisure and hospitality businesses start hiring.

But now, instead of hiring, companies are cutting. For example, in the transportation and utilities sector, 1800 jobs were cut when a gain of 1800 would have been the norm.

The professional sector cut 700 jobs -- when a gain of 1700 would have fit the seasonal pattern.

Ayre says the only sector to add jobs was the government. And it only added 200 jobs when 1200 would have been usual.

Art Ayre: ““Oregon lost about 5000 jobs in March. The seasonally expected gain was 9000 jobs. The difference between those two was 14,000 jobs. We fell short of the seasonally expected gain by 14,000 jobs.”

At a job center in Tualatin, dozens of people sit in cubicles -- checking computers for jobs. One is an accountant who’s been looking for almost a year.

Another is an optical engineer who can’t even find a job as a machinist -- a skill he acquired 10 years ago. And here’s Meagan Ty-Walker.

Meagan Ty-Walker: “I was laid off on January 15th of 09 from a market research company here in Portland. Have been looking for work in the industry ever since and it doesn’t appear that anyone in the Portland area is hiring so I’ve had to expand my search nationally and even with foreign firms. I’ve had many interviews, made it to the final round and told that the final positions been put on hold because of a hiring freeze. I was unemployed briefly back in 2004 and it is definitely taking longer this time.”

Three times as many Oregonians are receiving unemployment benefits now as were this time last year.

On the bright side, economists say even during a recession there’s a certain amount of  'churn' among jobs -- that is people retiring, or leaving for new positions. Meaning that job seekers shouldn’t give up.