SOUTHERN OREGON, Ore. – A new report from the Oregon Employment Department projects the Rogue Valley will add 13,000 jobs between 2021 and 2031.
That’s an 11 percent increase, which one local economist, Guy Tauer, said is down from the previous decade.
“Slightly slower than the last 10 years and because that’s just because of aging baby boomers, little slower population growth, a little slower expected population growth of the folks in the prime working age years,” he said.
He said the Rogue Valley still hasn’t recovered all the jobs lost from the pandemic, which affected the projections as well.
The largest increase in jobs is expected to come in the private educational and health services industry with leisure and hospitality not far behind.
Compared to the rest of the state, Jackson and Josephine counties are expected to lag slightly behind, but remain higher than Coos, Curry and Klamath counties.
“We’re expected to be a little slower than the Bend area and a little slower than the Portland area, so overall stateside is expected to grow 13% and we’re just slightly slower growth in the Rogue Valley than the overall statewide trend, which is really driven by the Portland area a lot,” Tauer said.
That‘s usually the case with economics in the state.
In the short term, the Rogue Valley lost a combined 1,500 jobs in January.
Tauer said this is normal after the holidays, as retail payroll shrinks.
“This time of the year we always have an uptick, like November and December we see an uptick in retail trade jobs, and then of course some of those go away after the holidays,” he said.
Statewide, January’s unemployment rate was 4.8%.
That’s the same as it was last October.
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