Oregon's Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently published the 2009 annual geographic profile of employment and unemployment for the states. I've already used data from this profile multiple times since its release, and thought there were some interesting items worth sharing.

Characteristics of Oregon's employed population:

• Oregon had the 8th highest employment of all states in agricultural industries, but ranked 27th in the number of overall workers.

• Of the estimated 433,000 people working part-time, 65 percent worked part-time because they wanted to work part time.

• Far more of Oregon's part-time workers were women (63%) than men (37%).

• Oregon had approximately 172,000 self-employed workers in 2009.

Of the approximately 225,000 Oregonians who were unemployed in 2009:

• Almost 86 percent were seeking full-time employment

• Approximately 155,000 lost their job in 2009; another 40,000 were re-entrants into the labor force, and 15,000 were new entrants into the labor force.

To see the entire series of geographic profile pages for the states, visit the BLS website (www.bls.gov/opub/gp/gpsec2.htm).