Employment in the Automotive Repair and Maintenance Industry Remains Lower than the Pre-Recession Peak

About 3.1 million Oregonians held a driver’s license in Oregon in 2018 and the state had more than 4.1 million registered vehicles. That doesn’t include vehicles registered elsewhere that travel into the state. That’s a lot of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and motor homes on the road with the potential to break down and need some kind of servicing or require regularly scheduled preventative maintenance.

Automotive repair and maintenance was one of many industries that were unable to escape the recession from 2007 to 2009. From peak employment in 2007 to 2017, this industry lost 2.5 percent of jobs in the private sector, while total payroll employment in Oregon’s private sector saw a job gain of 9.6 percent. In 2007, the industry employed about 12,800 workers. By 2017, employment stood at about 12,400 workers. The industry experienced a post-recession low in 2010 with 10,800 jobs. Since then, employment has increased 14.9 percent.

The automotive repair and maintenance industry has not kept pace with job growth in the general economy since 2001. Prior to the recession, employment in Oregon’s private sector grew about three times as fast as the automotive repair and maintenance industry. During the recession, the automotive repair and maintenance industry saw a larger employment decline (-12.6%) than Oregon’s private sector (-8.7%). During the post-recession recovery, the private sector grew faster than the industry, 21.1 percent compared with 14.9 percent.

Read more about the automotive repair and maintenance industry in the article written by Workforce Analyst Sarah Cunningham.