Oregon employers have thousands of hard-to-fill openings

Oregon businesses reported 50,800 jobs vacancies at any given time in 2016. A new report from the Research Division of the Oregon Employment Department finds that employers reported nearly two-thirds (64%) of those job vacancies as difficult to fill.

With unemployment near record lows and continued job growth, a lack of applicants posed the greatest challenge to employers. In 2016, two out of every five (38%) difficult-to fill job vacancies, and almost one-fourth (23%) of all vacancies in Oregon had an insufficient number of applicants, or none at all.

In 2016, health care and social assistance employers reported the largest number of difficult-to-fill vacancies (7,300). The natural resources and mining and construction sectors had the largest shares of hard-to-fill job openings. These two sectors reported challenges with at least eight out of 10 job openings.

Yet employers faced challenges filling job openings across the economy in 2016. The top occupations by number of difficult-to-fill vacancies included construction laborers, personal care aides, nursing assistants, restaurant cooks, truck drivers, retail salespersons, and production workers.

The full report, A Lack of Applicants in a Growing Economy, and additional job vacancy information for Oregon and several sub-state areas can be found on the publications page of QualityInfo.org.