T

he college graduate working part-time as a barista in Portland is more than a cliché.

confirms that Oregon has one of the worst underemployment problems in the nation.

The report probably understates the problem. Workers who have not looked for a job in the past four weeks are not included in the unemployment statistics. Also, people working full-time at jobs below their skill level count as fully employed. Only those who are unemployed or working part-time out of economic necessity count as underemployed.

Statistically, 17.4 percent of the Oregon workforce was underemployed over the 12 months ending June 30. That's an 8.3 percentage point gap between the unemployment and underemployment rate -- tied with Washington for the third-largest gap in the nation.

Policymakers correctly focus more on the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed. Research shows that those who remain unemployed for more than six months enter a financial hole from which it is difficult to escape. But Oregon will not regain its economic health until the underemployment problem also is addressed -- and that could be an equally difficult task.

Underemployment has been a persistent problem in Oregon, in good times and bad. Since 2003, the gap between the U.S. and Oregon underemployment rates has been at least 1.6 percentage points every year.

In economic terms, the damage from underemployment is the same as from unemployment -- it decreases the amount of money that consumers have to spend. One of the reasons for the severity of the recession was decreased spending among even those who remained employed -- whether because of lost wages, decreased wealth due to the housing collapse or a decision to be more conservative because of the economic gloom.

So what can Oregon do to reduce the number of underemployed, including those who are not counted in government reports but work in low-paying full-time jobs beneath their training and ability? Beyond the obvious imperative to create more family-wage jobs, the biggest payoff would come from increased effort to train and retrain workers. This has been a particular issue in Oregon over the past 25 years as traditional manufacturing and timber jobs have become a smaller and smaller percentage of the economy.

A recent

shows what happens when traditional manufacturing jobs disappear.

From late 2007 through April 2009, Oregon lost about 5,000 RV-manufacturing jobs, leaving the industry almost 80 percent below its peak employment. In the third quarter of 2011, only 12 percent of the 2007 RV workers were still in the industry. Thirty-six percent of the 2007 RV workers had no wages reported in Oregon; they had left the state, retired or were unemployed. Of the other 52 percent, 64 percent earned less money than they did in 2007.

Oregon still has a larger manufacturing base than most states, but it is anchored by the high-tech industry. That's good, unless you used to work in a sawmill or an RV plant. The skills don't transfer without retraining.

Of all Oregon's education goals, the one that might contribute the most to long-term economic stability is the second 40 in the 40-40-20 plan. That plan aspires to have an adult workforce made up of 40 percent college graduates, 40 percent with associate degrees or technical certificates and 20 percent with high-school degrees. For the plan to work, the middle group not only needs to have technical degrees, but they also need to have training that matches job opportunities. Otherwise, they'll compete with college graduates for those barista jobs.

Any way you look at it, the challenge is daunting. But if Oregon doesn't solve its underemployment problem it will continue to underachieve.