New stats tally Oregon part-timers, under-employed

More than 100,000 Oregonians were working part-time last year – not for work-life balance or other reasons, but unable to find full-time jobs, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

The latest Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization news release for Oregon is now available from BLS online at http://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/laborunderutilization_oregon.htm.

Items of note include:

In 2014, the broadest measure of labor underutilization, designated U-6 (includes the unemployed, workers employed part-time for economic reasons, and the marginally attached to the labor force), was 14.2 percent in Oregon, compared to the U.S. average of 12.0 percent.
Oregon had 137,500 unemployed residents in 2014, and another 115,100 were employed part time for economic reasons (also known as involuntary part time).
25,900 Oregonians were marginally attached to the labor force in 2014. (Marginally attached individuals would like a job and have looked for work during the past 12 months, but had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey and are therefore not counted as unemployed in the official unemployment rate.)
7,000 discouraged workers (a subset of the marginally attached) did not look for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey because they believed no jobs were available for them.