Turning Point 2020: Oregon's Workforce from Expansion to Pandemic

The Oregon Employment Department Research section released its latest report, Turning Point 2020: Oregon's Workforce from Expansion to Pandemic in June 2020. The report examines Oregon's employment landscape from the end of the state's longest economic expansion to the beginning of COVID-19 related record job losses.  Here is an executive summary:

• Oregon’s unemployment rate rose from a near-record-low 3.5 percent, as revised, in March to a record-high 14.2 percent in April, as COVID-19 business closures shut down a large portion of the economy.

• Oregon’s payroll employers shed nearly 270,000 jobs during March and April. One out of every eight jobs in Oregon was idled or lost in just two months.

• From March 15 through May 16, 2020, the Oregon Employment Department received about 412,000 initial claims for traditional Unemployment Insurance. Job losses were concentrated among younger, lower-wage workers with high school educations or less.

• Oregon’s economy faces many of the same demographic challenges seen across the nation, such as the aging of the workforce and baby boomer retirements, fewer young people participating in the labor force, and slower job growth in rural areas.

• The number of unemployed Oregonians was at a record low in early 2020 – still, amidst the lowest unemployment rates on record in Oregon, one out of five unemployed Oregonians had been unemployed for six months or longer.

• Today, nearly one out of four Oregon workers is age 55 or older, adding up to nearly 439,000 workers in 2018. Of those workers 124,000 were age 65 years and older and working past the traditional age of retirement.

• Oregon’s rural areas tend to have an older population and workforce. Many of these workers are planning to retire in the next 10 years, taking their skills and experience with them. This will adversely impact employers unless they can recruit skilled workers from other areas to sustain the size of their current workforce and fuel their local economies.

• By 2019 the number of jobs in rural Oregon had barely budged above the levels seen back in 2001; rural Oregon gained just 16,000 jobs, adding 7 percent. The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro outpaced the rest of the state, with a 25 percent gain between 2001 and 2019, amounting to an additional 247,000 jobs. All other metro areas combined gained 23 percent, adding 117,000 jobs.

To learn more about this turning point in our economy, read the full report here. 

Nearly One Out of Four Workers in Oregon is 55 or Older

Oregon’s workforce is aging. The number of Oregon jobs held by workers age 55 and over more than tripled from 1992 to 2018, while the total number of jobs grew by just over 50 percent. Workers 55 years and over held just 10 percent of the jobs in 1992. By 2018, that share increased to 23 percent. Driving this trend is the fact that much of the Baby Boomer Generation is now 55 and over, and they are more likely to be in the labor force than previous generations were at this age. Many of these workers are probably planning to retire in the next 10 years, taking their skills and experience with them. Although the aging workforce is a general demographic trend, it impacts employers, industries, and regions to varying degrees.

Industry age profiles vary from the relatively young accommodation and food services sector where just 15 percent of workers are 55 and over to the relatively old mining and quarrying sector where 32 percent of workers are 55 and over. Although natural resources and utilities have high concentrations of older workers, they employ fewer workers than many industries and will require relatively few replacement workers. Some employers within industries with a large number of workers 55 years and older may struggle to find enough suitable workers if they don’t plan ahead. Health care (both private and public) stands out for the size of its aging workforce, with 65,000 workers age 55 and over. Other industries with a large number of workers nearing retirement age are manufacturing (48,000 workers), retail trade (44,000), and private and public educational services (42,000).

Rural Counties Have Older Workforces

Rural county workforces tend to have a higher share of older workers and will feel the impact of the aging workforce more than metro counties. In rural counties more than one out of four workers is 55 years or older. That represents approximately 84,000 workers in rural Oregon who are probably hoping to retire within the next decade.

To learn more, read workforce analyst Michael Doughty's full article here. 

Working Over Time: Workers 65 and Older in Oregon

In the last few decades, the number of people who work later than the “traditional retirement age” of 65 has grown substantially. In fact, the population of workers in their 60s and 70s has been the fastest growing segment of the labor force in the last 10 years.



The number of workers 65 and older in Oregon has more than quadrupled since 1992. People 65 and older now make up nearly 7 percent of all workers, up from 2 percent 25 years ago.

While it’s true our population is getting older overall with the aging of the large baby boomer generation, the rate at which older people participate in the labor force is increasing as well, from a low of about 10 percent in the mid-90s to nearly 20 percent in recent years. That means about one out of five people 65 and older have a job or are unemployed and looking for work.

This trend is likely to continue: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that nationally, the over-65 population is the only age group that will see a substantial increase in their workforce participation rates from 2018 to 2028.


Choice or Necessity?

Is an increase in older workers a cause for celebration or alarm? As is the case with so many economic questions, the best answer is probably, it depends.

Some people are working longer because they can. As Americans stay healthy and live longer, many see no reason to stop doing work they enjoy, especially since many jobs are less physically taxing than they used to be.

Another explanation is that people continue to work past 65 out of economic necessity. Fixed retirement income may not be enough to cover costs. Nationally, people in the bottom half of the income distribution are likely not to have any retirement savings, with Social Security often replacing only about 40 to 50 percent of pre-retirement income. Increasing housing and health care costs in many areas of Oregon are likely to create money pressures among the aging population that could keep them in the labor market.

Structural changes in retirement policies interact with these individual circumstances as well. Increases in labor force participation for older Americans coincide with increases in the minimum retirement age for full Social Security benefits. There has also been a large-scale shift by businesses from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement plans for their employees, which shift the risk of retirement investments from employers to workers.

To learn more, read workforce analyst Henry Field's full article here.

Oregon's Aging Principal Farm Producers

According to the 2017 Agricultural Census, Oregon’s farm acreage totaled about 16 million in 2017, with 37,616 farms and 67,595 producers. The age of an Oregon principal farm producer averaged 58.9 years in 2017. Wheeler County’s farm producers led the state, averaging 63.7 years of age, while Harney County’s represented the youngest, at 55.6 on average. By age group, producers ages 55 to 64 led Oregon in 2017, representing about 29 percent of all principal farm producers. The 65 to 74 age group followed closely, representing more than one out of four producers or 26 percent. Producers in the 75 years and over group totaled 6,511 to represent 12 percent of Oregon’s total. Together, farmers age 55 and older represented 66 percent of Oregon’s principal farm producers. This compares to 23 percent of workers across all other industries in the same year.

The term producer designates a person who is involved in making decisions for the farm operation. Decisions may include planning about such things as planting, harvesting, livestock management, and marketing. The producer may be the owner, a member of the owner’s household, a hired manager, a tenant, a renter, or a sharecropper. A principal producer is a producer who indicated they were a principal operator. A farm can have multiple principal producers. Each farm has at least one principal producer. 

There were 54,450 principal producers in 2017 with a 60/40 split between males, numbering 32,903 and females, at 21,547. Principal producers were also asked whether their primary occupation was farming. The majority of principal producers, 57 percent, worked off the farm, spending less than 50 percent of his/her work time during 2017 farming or ranching. The remaining 43 percent of principal producers spent 50 percent or more of his/her work time during 2017 farming or ranching, making their primary occupation farming. 

The vast majority of principal producers, 47,595 or 87 percent, lived on the farm. Principal producers spend an average of 20.2 years at the same operation and an average of 22.5 years operating any farm. Principal producers in Gilliam County spent an average 24.1 years at the same farm, followed closely by Sherman County’s 23.3 years. Principal producers in Deschutes County, with an average tenure of 15.5 years, represented the new comers.

To learn more about Oregon's farms, revenues, and crops, read the full article by Regional Economist Dallas Fridley.