African American Workers in Oregon's Workforce

To commemorate and celebrate the contributions to our nation made by people of African descent, American historian Carter G. Woodson established Black History Week. The first celebration occurred on Feb. 12, 1926. For many years, the second week of February was set aside for this celebration to coincide with the birthdays of abolitionist/editor Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. In 1976, as part of the nation’s bicentennial, the week was expanded to a month. Since then, U.S. presidents have proclaimed February as National African-American History Month. In celebration of this, we will be doing a series of blog posts on African Americans in the Oregon workforce.

According to U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 American Community Survey estimates, there are about 124,365 Oregon residents who identify as Black or African American, or about 3 percent of Oregon’s population. Of those residents, about 83,722 are age 16 and over, with 64 percent in the Oregon labor force.

In the past 20 years, the number of Oregon workers identifying as African American alone has grown by 75 percent, from 28,000 in 1998 to 49,000 in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Quarterly Workforce Indicators. This is a much faster growth rate than for the Oregon workforce overall (25%), but slower than the growth rates for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders (107%), those identifying as two or more race groups (93%), and Asian workers (91%).

More than half of black workers statewide are employed in one of three sectors: education services, health care, and social assistance (28%); retail trade (12%); or manufacturing (11%). Another one-fourth of Oregon’s African American workers can be found in arts, entertainment, accommodation and food services (11%); professional, scientific, management, administrative, and waste management services (7%); or transportation, warehousing, and utilities (7%).

To learn more about African Americans in the Oregon workforce, read the full article written by Workforce Analyst Shawna Sykes.