Some of Us Sleep During the Day

Many of our friends and family members work evenings, nights and weekends. For some, it is a choice in order to make a higher per-hour wage or establish work-family balance, but for many, it is simply when the work is available.

Most Oregon workers arrive at work in the morning. Between 5 a.m. and 11:59 a.m., more than four out of five workers in the state start their workday. Shift workers (defined here as those who arrive at work between noon and 4:59 a.m.) make up less than one-fifth of all workers in Oregon - about 280,000 workers in all.


Oregon is in the middle of the pack in the share of shift workers, ranking 24th among the states and Washington, D.C. Most of Oregon's neighboring states have similar shares of shift workers. Nevada, on the other hand, ranks 1st among the states and the District of Columbia. When you consider the night-life in a city like Las Vegas, it isn't surprising that shift workers make up nearly one-quarter of all workers in that state.

Workers in the public sector are slightly more likely than private-sector workers to work a regular daytime schedule. Among private-sector industries, those most reliant on shift workers include mining, transportation and warehousing, nondurable goods manufacturing, and leisure and hospitality.

While shift workers make up fewer than one in five workers in the Oregon economy, these workers are instrumental in keeping production humming along while most of us are catching our rest before picking up again in the morning.

Read the full article, written by Economist Jessica Nelson, to learn more about the work schedules of Oregonians.