Employment remains flat in Jackson County between August and September

Guy Tauer with the Oregon Employment Department says that the fires may have impacted job gains after losses during the COVID-19 closures.

With brian morton, alicia rubin, and stormwatch 12 weather with chief meteorologist matt hoffman."

Today, new employment numbers are out for jackson josephine counties.

They're out for the month of september.

Joining us now is guy tower with the oregon employment department.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me, brian.

So what are you seeing in the numbers that came in for the last month?

Well, we didn't see a whole lot of change in the unemployment rate.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained fairly elevated in jackson county, 8.7%.

Uh, we did lose, uh, uh, well, unemployment or employment was generally flat in jackson county.

Uh, we did lose some private sector jobs really related to leisure and hospitality.

So we lost about 500 jobs over the month in leisure and hospitality.

And a lot of that was related to.

The fires and the slowness that we had during that week, um, where these numbers are tabulated.

So, uh, just being county did see a slight increase over the month in employment, but a lot of that was related to seasonal hiring in local government education, uh, private sector employment in josephine county, um, declined a little bit as well.

So previous to this, we've been seeing sort of a game back of some of the jobs that we've been losing since the beginning of the pandemic is that trend continuing.

And are you seeing an improvement?

Well, it is continuing in general.

Um, you know, september was a bit of an anomaly, uh, of course, because of the fire.

So we did see that trend really, um, stop.

But up to this point, we have seen improvement.

Although we do have a long way to go and just encountered, gained back about one out of three jobs in jackson county, the current estimates show we've gained about 70% of the jobs that we lost during the initial part of the pandemic.

Uh, but these are preliminary estimates and there'll be revised.

We actually have some of that, a quarterly payroll data.

That's not quite incorporated into these estimates.

And so i would just be cautious a little bit with these numbers that show that we've gained a 70% of the jobs back in jackson county, because like i said, we'll have more complete payroll data to revise those numbers.

So i'm not maybe not quite as rosy as that.

Well, given the rebuilding is going to require be required in jackson county, specifically as a result of the alameda fire.

What do you think that might.

Change in the months ahead.

Well, certainly there's going to be demand for that cleanup work.

That is just going to be a, a lot of, um, you know, thousands and thousands of cubic yards of debris.

Once they get through the hazardous waste removal portion.

So it's going to be a multiple month project, um, and there'll be a demand for workers.

So there'll be folks needed to do that type of work.

And then once we get through the cleanup process, um, the cleanup that's being coordinated right now is through fema.

And then, um, and i'm not sure, you know, who will take over the main portion of the ash and trash portion of the debris, the removal, but once that's all done, we'll need folks to help rebuild, um, to help put in temporary housing.

And then once we get through that stage, the more longterm housing once plans are in place.

So there'll be a lot of demand for that work to rebuild those communities.

What do you see in the future in terms of job growth and josephine county separately from the areas possibly hit by the fire and jackson county.

Well, fortunately we didn't have the business loss over in josephine county.

So i think, um, you know, while there were some homes and people impacted over there, um, nothing to the loss of, of the jackson county sob, but going forward in josephine county, um, you know, kind of as the rest of the economy goes.

So a lot depends on the course of the pandemic that we're all living under.

Uh, we have seen a slowing in job growth statewide.

So in general, we saw a little bit faster job growth in this happened in josephine county as well.

But over the past few months, that pace of recovery has slowed.

So once again, we added less jobs, um, in september than we, than we did in august, um, really across the area.

And that increase was less than we saw in july.

So that rate of improvement has been slowing.

So that's what we're kind of expecting going forward is, uh, slow, uh, recovery with fits and starts along the way with some sectors doing better than others.

We've certainly seen improvements in retail trade.

Um, education, health services, um, you know, private, um, healthcare and things like that come back.

Uh, construction is, is done pretty well.

Uh, on the other hand, uh, tourism based businesses, hotels, travel airlines, uh, anything, uh, hospitality, um, sporting events and things like that that aren't allowed to go on.

Um, that's going to be a very long haul to get back to pre pandemic levels of employment in