In the official world of government reports, Oregon's economy has stalled at 9.5 percent unemployment with almost no job growth since February. Economists call the

, distressing.

And in the real world inhabited by Scott Pickard and many others no longer counted as jobless, actual unemployment is far higher. Pickard, 49, of Tigard, lost a human-resources job in early 2009, exhausted his unemployment benefits and moved in with his mother in February.

Pickard scrapes by. He earns a few bucks coaching other jobless people on interviewing skills. He falls into a

, of under- and unemployed people.

Some label this figure, a whopping 19.6 percent in Oregon during the year that ended March 31, the real unemployment rate. Oregon's "U-6" rate is fourth highest in the country, behind Nevada, California and Michigan. It's far above the national 16.5 percent U-6 level.

"There's very little hope, but still I'm not saying there's none," said Pickard, who hunts for work seven days a week. "There's certainly very little improvement for those of us who are long-term unemployed."

Oregon can take comfort in the fact that official unemployment dropped from 11.6 percent in spring 2009, seasonally adjusted, to 9.5 percent in July. The number of unemployed also fell, from 210,649 a year ago to 189,501 in July.

But the broadest measure of underutilized workers in Oregon, the U-6, remains stubbornly high at more than twice the official unemployment rate. It's only 1.1 percentage points below Oregon's U-6 peak of 20.7 percent in 2009.

People such as Pickard fall through the cracks -- out of work but uncounted in the most widely used jobless figures. An upbeat, articulate career veteran, Pickard acknowledges that he occasionally gets discouraged.

Others get angry. In Salem on Tuesday, a fight broke out in a line of more than 1,000 applicants for temporary jobs at the Oregon State Fair.

Unemployment, and how it's counted, is subject to widespread misunderstanding. Some critics contend the government uses the official definition of unemployment -- the U-3 -- to understate joblessness, making the economy appear healthier than it is.

"The most common misconception is that you have to be receiving unemployment benefits in order to be counted as unemployed," said Nick Beleiciks, state employment economist. "That's simply not true."

The official unemployment rate is the share of the civilian labor force that is not working but has made specific efforts to find employment during the previous four weeks. Economists adjust the monthly percentages to iron out seasonal fluctuations. They sometimes revise rates a month later to reflect new data.

Like Pickard, many people who fall into the U-6 category settle for part-time work because they can't find full-time work. The category also includes marginally attached workers, who aren't working and aren't job-hunting at the moment. Within that group are so-called discouraged workers, who aren't looking because they think their prospects are bad.

The monthly report issued Tuesday by Oregon's Employment Department showed a state economy stuck in neutral. Official unemployment stayed flat in July at 9.5 percent, essentially unchanged from 9.4 percent in June.

Job growth was flat, too. From October through February, the state added 22,800 payroll jobs, seasonally adjusted. Since then, only 400 jobs were added.

In addition, in June for the first time in Oregon history, the number of leisure-and-hospitality jobs in the state surpassed the number of manufacturing jobs. The gap widened in July.

Jay Clemens, president of

said the reversal is disturbing. "Most of the service jobs just simply don't have the wages manufacturing jobs do," Clemens said. In general, he said, "manufacturing jobs import new dollars into the economy, while service jobs compete for dollars that are already in the economy."

Oregon's private sector shows relative signs of life. Over the past four months, seasonally adjusted private employment expanded by 7,300 jobs, while government jobs declined by 4,900.

, an Oregon State University economist, was heartened by the private-sector gains but called the overall lack of improvement distressing. "It just points to a real stall in our economy," he said.

"To live with 9 to 10 percent unemployment for a number of years is just unfathomable to me -- I think it's unforgivable," Emerson said. "But Oregon is stuck, just like the rest of the United States. I expect this malaise to continue this year and maybe into next year.

"That's depressing."

Twitter: @ReadOregonian