Earlier this week...
It's tempting to present the flattening of Oregon's unemployment rate--at 11.3 percent in October--as good news. But economists, dismal scientists to the core, paint a negative picture.
First, October's number--the same seasonally adjusted 11.3 percent as September's revised rate--remains stubbornly higher than the nation's towering 10.2 percent level.
Second, Oregon's jobless rate hasn't fallen from its 12.2 percent May high because employers have embarked on a hiring spree. On the contrary the state lost another 1,900 jobs in October, officials said Monday, following a revised loss of 6,000 in September.
Instead what appears to be happening is that many job hunters--retirees and nonworking spouses who dusted off resumes as the financial sector imploded and stocks plunged--are leaving the hunt. Their disappearance from the ranks of the officially unemployed lowers the jobless rate, said David Cooke, a state labor economist.
Considering that Kulongoski claims he's a "jobs Democrat" (previous blog here), guess we shouldn't be surprised by the following reaction to that data.
Oregon's recession is over. Or nearly over, state economist Tom Potiowsky declared Thursday.
While there's no state agency that officially designates Oregon either as in or out of recession, Potiowsky told state lawmakers "we have enough indicators that technically the recession has ended in Oregon or is about to."
Don't get too excited. Potiowsky also described the state's economy as "bouncing along the bottom." And it's likely to do that for a while.
Oregon economists are sticking with predictions of a "jobless recovery."
"Jobless recovery" is a noxious oxymoron.
By the way, if Potiowsky sounds familiar, he's the guy whose "accurate" economic forecasts have allowed Oregonians to receive several large kicker checks (previous blog here).
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