Oregon Had 35,200 Job Vacancies in the Spring

Oregon’s private employers had approximately 35,200 job vacancies during spring 2013, according to a Job Vacancy Survey recently completed by the Oregon Employment Department. During the same month there were 149,200 unemployed Oregonians, or roughly 4 unemployed people for each private-sector vacancy.

This is the first time spring estimates of Oregon job vacancies have been available since 2009. As expected, the number of vacancies in spring 2013 was far above the level in spring 2009, when OED estimated 18,200 vacancies in the depths of the Great Recession. The number was also well above the winter 2013 estimate of 22,900 vacancies that OED released in April. An increase in the spring was expected, as labor demand hits a lull each winter, but the 35,200 vacancies this spring likely also marks a surge in job growth in Oregon in recent months.

The health care and social assistance industry usually dominates Oregon job vacancies and they came in first again, accounting for 6,586 of the spring vacancies. However, manufacturing vacancies nearly caught up with the pace of health care hiring, reporting 6,545 vacancies. Leisure and hospitality, and the management, administrative, and waste services industry (which includes company headquarters and temporary staffing agencies, among other businesses) each reported more than 4,100 vacancies.

For more information, such as the number of vacancies by occupation and region, check out the Quarterly Job Vacancies Snapshots on QualityInfo.org.