Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon’s rising unemployment rate stalled in April. But as Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, state economists say it’s too soon to tell if that means the economy is turning around.

Since the economic crisis started last fall, Oregon’s employment rate has jumped an average of one percentage point every month.  It reached 11.9 percent in March -- that’s a revised figure.

In April, it barely jumped at all --  to 12 percent. State employment economist, Art Ayre, says it’s encouraging news, but....

Art Ayre: “We do not want to read too much into one month. This does not necessarily mean that future months unemployment rates will remain stable. We will have to wait and see what happens in those future months.”

The state lost about 9000 jobs in April, but Ayre says that’s not as bad as recent months. In February, for example, nearly 23,000 jobs disappeared.

Oregon’s jobless rate remains about three percent higher than the nation average of 8.9 percent.