Why is the Oregon unemployment rate so high??? (Eugene: home, find a job)

[caliguy92832]

Year after year it's in the top 5 or top 10 of all the states in high unemployment. Some years back is was like 8 or 9%. A few times I wanted to move there but didn't because I didnt want go up there and be unable to find a job. I visited up there one time, beautiful state.

[freedom]

There is a large no growth, no industry mentality here, kind of a visit and spend your money and go home mindset.

Don't cut a tree, build a house, expand business opportunity.
Very difficult climate for capitalism.

Fullerton was a great place to grow up. I went to Sunny Hills, class of 82.

freedom

[Silverfall]

Oregon does not have a huge industrial base. The timber industry for a long supported our "industrial level" workers, and since the timber industry collapsed in the 80's there hasn't been anything to replace it.

We have an engineering shortage here, and so many manufacturers are leary of building plants here as they are worried about having the educated work force that they need in order to function. Large manufacturers also want large tax incentives to locate plants, and we don't typically do well in that area. There are a lot of factors that go into this issue.

We also have had a large influx of people moving to Oregon in the past decade which has increased this problem as well. There is a lot of competition for good jobs.

So, in short we always rank at the bottom for employment opportunities (we are currently 42 out of 50) due to our lack of industrial/manufacturing base.

[dldavis]

Bravo to the person who said it best, no capitalism is promoted in most of the state of Oregon. You can thank a Democrate for this. Oregon has no knowlege how the real world works. Most big business, paper plants and tree industry etc. have left the state due to the bleeding heart liberals.

I use to live in Eugene while young and of bleeding heart myself. Now i am educated over 30 and can think with my brain and can clearly see that if you restrict company growth, tax big businesses and have more government involvement you will drive up taxes, clear out business and thus have high unemployment rates.

di

[haggardhouseelf]

We have a huge number of retired people here. It's a great place to retire to!

[Leisesturm]

The country has been under a Republican watch for the last eight years. 80,000 jobs left the economy last month. 76,000 the month before that. The national unemployment rate is up to 5.1% from 4.6%. What does being Republican or Democrat have to do with it? Oregon's unemployment is higher than the national average for the reasons posted earlier by Silverfall. Overall though it isn't Oregon alone, the entire country's economy is worse than it was in the 80's and it wasn't great then. Big business knows only one thing: the bottom line.

H

[caliguy92832]

Originally Posted by freedom

There is a large no growth, no industry mentality here, kind of a visit and spend your money and go home mindset.

Don't cut a tree, build a house, expand business opportunity.
Very difficult climate for capitalism.

Fullerton was a great place to grow up. I went to Sunny Hills, class of 82.

freedom

no way. small world. i graduated from sunny hills in 1995. started there in 1991. also went to parks middle school. gary carter the baseball player also graduated from SH, i think in the late 60's.

[PNW-type-gal]

There is also a huge difference in the unemployment rate in the cities versus the more rural areas (especially timber-dependent areas).

Here's a fairly recent list:
http://www.qualityinfo.org/olmisj/AllRates

[Silverfall]

PNW,
Some of those timber areas were just decimated in the 1980's. Some of those unemployment numbers are crazy. Thanks for sharing the link.

[Good_Teacher]

Originally Posted by Silverfall

PNW,
Some of those timber areas were just decimated in the 1980's. Some of those unemployment numbers are crazy. Thanks for sharing the link.

I am glad the timber industry has been decimated. I wish they would stop all the environmentally destructive clear cut logging. I have no respect for a community based on such terrible environmental destruction.