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The state's robust job market is feeding a virtuous cycle, with people moving here from elsewhere to find work. And that in turn creates more jobs, with the construction industry adding homes and the newly employed putting money back into the economy.

(Oregonian file photo)

Oregon's unemployment rate dipped to 3.8 percent in March, the first time in at least 41 years it's dropped below 4 percent.

The state added 2,400 jobs last month, according to data out Tuesday morning from the Oregon Employment Department. That's a lot slower than February, when Oregon employers added 7,600 jobs, according to revised figures.

The biggest gains came in professional and business services, government jobs and manufacturing. Financial services shed 1,300 positions, according to the seasonally adjusted data, the only sector that lost more than 1,000 jobs in March.

Oregon's jobless rate remains well below the national rate, 4.5 percent, and is at its lowest point since the state began keeping comparable records in 1976.

A broader measure of Oregon's employment picture, the U-6 or "underemployment" rate, fell to 8.6 percent last month. That's also a historic low, and the state continues adding jobs much faster than the nation as a whole.

The state's robust job market is feeding a virtuous cycle, with people moving here from elsewhere to find work. That in turn creates more jobs, with the construction industry adding homes and the newly employed putting money back into the economy.

Though the state's employment picture has never been better, the good economic times actually make life harder for Oregonians who are on fixed incomes or unable to tap into hot fields like tech.

And disparities remain across the state, with the jobless rate in a few rural areas more than double February's 3.5 percent number in the Portland area. Grant County had the state's highest unemployment rate that month, at 7.2 percent.

Even there, though, unemployment is down dramatically – from a peak above 14 percent following the Great Recession. Grant County's jobless rate is now at its lowest point since at least 2000.

Still, economists note that Oregon's growth rate is bound to slow as the state nears full employment. State employment grew 2.2 percent in the past 12 months, down from 3 percent or more during much of the recovery from the Great Recession.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699