Economist: Deschutes County saw 16.5% plunge in jobs last month
EUGENE, Ore. (KTVZ) -- As expected, a fairly stable employment picture for the Bend-Redmond metro area (defined as all of Deschutes County) fell off the proverbial cliff in April, as it did for the state and nation, a University of Oregon economist said Monday.
Tim Duy reviewed new federal Bureau of Labor Statistics employment estimates for last month, available at the St. Louis Federal Reserve's public data repository for Oregon metro areas.
"As might be expected, all regions experienced steep employment declines; total payrolls were down in the range of 12%-15% compared to April of last year," Duy wrote. "The leisure and hospitality industries were particularly hard hit."
The BLS data shows the Bend-Redmond metro area plunged from an estimated 87,500 jobs in March to 73,100 jobs in April, a drop of 14,400 jobs, or nearly 16.5%.
While all regions of Oregon gave up years of job gains, the Eugene-Springfield region was particularly hard-hit, Duy said.
According to the posted data, April employment in Eugene-Springfield was 139,000; at the lowest point after the last recession, September 2010, employment was 140,100. "In other words, the region gave up nearly 10 years of job growth" last month, he said.
With the state moving into the initial phase of reopening and ending the most strict lockdowns, Duy predicted that "employment declines will slow and will then stabilize; in some sectors (such as elective medical care, for instance) jobs might rebound fairly quickly.
"Other sectors, however, will continue to be impacted by social distancing restrictions, especially leisure and hospitality, and be fairly slow to recover," Duy wrote. "Overall, the recovery to pre-coronavirus employment levels will likely be fairly slow as the economy adapts to the virus."
