Black Friday

A Macy's employee helps Kaycie Doyle, of Tigard, as she looks at jewelry during the Lloyd Center store's Black Friday sales.

(Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)

The year is winding down, job growth is ramping up, and, still, a quarter of a million Oregonians are stuck in part-time jobs or without work at all.

A new report shows Oregon's economic recovery gained momentum this fall, picking up an estimated 5,400 jobs last month alone, after adjusting for seasonal factors. Unemployment, meanwhile, has declined from 8.1 percent in August to 7.3 percent in November, a new five-year low.

But a seasonally adjusted 139,800 people were unemployed in November, and just as many workers were underemployed -- working part-time jobs but wishing they could get full-time ones.

“Even though we’re seeing (a) jobs recovery, there’s still a lot of people who need to be working more than they are,” said Nick Beleiciks, a state employment economist.

Far fewer people are out of work today than at the height of the recession, but the number of people working part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work has fallen much more slowly. It spiked in the recession, and remains about double what it was before the downturn. November marked the first time since at least 2002 that just as many workers were underemployed as unemployed.

Dan Aguayo/The Oregonian

“It’s obviously just not about the quantity of jobs out there, it’s the quality of jobs,” State Economist Mark McMullen said. “We still have some work to do in terms of the quality of jobs.”

The November jobs report, issued Tuesday morning, will be the last of the calendar year. McMullen said it makes clear that Oregon's economic recovery has accelerated this fall, but the damage left by the recession still can't be ignored. The longer workers are idle or underutilized, the bigger the drag on Oregon's potential growth.

While the number of people who have been out of work for relatively short periods has dropped back to levels seen in healthy economies, the share of workers who have been unemployed for six months or more remains about four times higher than normal, McMullen said.

About 43,000 Oregonians fall into that category today, just more than one-third of all of the state’s unemployed workers. The share has dropped somewhat, down from 40 percent in August, but it’s unclear whether that’s because people are finding jobs or dropping out of the workforce.

And things could quickly turn worse for many. An estimated 17,800 in Oregon will run out of jobless benefits in two weeks, when federal longterm unemployment aid expires.

McMullen said the cutoff could actually lower the state’s unemployment rate, because some people who are receiving benefits now may stop looking for work altogether, meaning they would no longer be considered unemployed. Instead, they would join the increasing ranks of people leaving the workforce. The percentage of adults in the labor market is at a 37-year-low of 61.1 percent.

Others on longterm unemployment may find jobs. Those who don’t will have less money to spend, and that could stretch the impact of the cuts beyond their households. “Folks who are collecting unemployment insurance checks tend to spend almost every penny of them in the near term, which creates quite a bit of economic activity,” McMullen said.

Jean DeMaster, executive director of the Gresham social services nonprofit Human Solutions, has her own economic gauge. She said more families are turning up at Human Solutions’ shelters this winter compared to the past, when 60 to 80 people would come every night. Now, she said, between 80 and 100 show up.

She said recent signs of job growth are encouraging, because more jobs will eventually open up for the people Human Solutions works with, many of whom face barriers to unemployment. “But we certainly have not seen it now,” she said. “The reason that the shelters are so full is because people can’t find work.”

The U-6 rate, a metric that attempts to measure the number of unemployed and underemployed Oregonians, plus those who are either marginally attached to the labor market or left it altogether, was 15.8 percent in November, down from 16.0 percent a year ago.

The standard unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell from 7.6 percent in October to 7.3 percent in November, closing in on the national average of 7.0 percent. The state jobless level is down from 8.4 percent in November 2012.

Since then, Oregon employers have added an estimated 37,300 jobs, including about 15,400 jobs since August.

Job growth last month was spread across most major industries. Retailers added 2,200 more jobs than expected, leading private sector hiring on the eve of the holiday shopping season. Construction also continued to expand, gaining about 500 jobs, as the industry rebuilds from the economic downturn. Though government hiring has been a drag on 2013 job growth, public agencies did expand in November, adding about 700 jobs.

Patrick Emerson, an Oregon State University economist, said the data showed the sustained strength of Oregon’s recovery. “Oregon is in a particularly good place right now,” he said. “It certainly makes me optimistic about the coming year or two.”

--Molly Young