Where all the jobs have gone
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: June 28. 2009 4:00AM PST
The meteoric rise and fall of Deschutes County’s unemployment rate has garnered national headlines as a prototypical boom and bust story, but what lies behind the county’s unemployment rate increase of 12 percentage points from May 2007 to May 2009?
Where have all the jobs gone? And how will the region look when it recovers?
Many companies reported difficulties finding employees in May 2007, when Deschutes County’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.7 percent.
Now, with an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent reported last week in the county and rates of 16.4 percent in Jefferson County and 20.9 percent in Crook County, employers report an abundance of labor with companies slashing wages and jobs, unemployment rates at all-time highs and job-seekers going to great lengths to find work.
Experts who study the region’s labor trends agree that the region’s housing market and construction activity became overheated during the boom years between 2004 and 2006.
“I don’t know what we’re shifting to, but when you look at that loss in (mining, logging and construction) jobs in just the last two years, it is safe to say the development-based economy has slowed,” said Carolyn Eagan, the region’s economist for the Oregon Employment Department.
“The county and city of Bend (have) had to cut staff, engineering firms are operating on bare-bones staff and many Realtors are not renewing their licenses,” Eagan said. “I don’t know what we’re shifting to. I don’t think we’ll know until it’s happened.”
The collapse of the housing industry has resulted in a net loss of 3,050 jobs in the county’s mining, logging and construction sector from May 2007 to May 2009, a 36.2 percent drop, according to the Oregon Employment Department. Most of that sector is construction, according to the department.
The county has 4,860 fewer jobs overall than it did in May 2007, the department said.
Other sectors where job losses were reported included manufacturing; professional and business services; and trade, transportation and utilities. They lost 910 jobs, 530 jobs and 710 jobs over the two-year period, respectively.
Individual industries such as high-tech and biosciences, which are smaller in size, are grouped under larger sectors such as manufacturing or professional services, depending on whether they produce a product or conduct research or provide services, for example, according to the Employment Department.
Professional and business services jobs range from those in law offices and architectural firms to employment and janitorial services. The trade, transportation and utilities sector includes retail and wholesale businesses, as well as private utility companies and private transportation companies.
Educational and health services jobs were up by 400, and leisure and hospitality jobs by 240, from May 2007 to May 2009, according to the data.
Those sectors demonstrated growth, but at a milder pace than during the boom years, the department said.
Over the same two-year period, there were 360 government jobs added in Deschutes County.
In May 2007, there were 67,120 jobs, 8.7 percent more than May 2009, according to a report last week from the Employment Department. The county peaked in total employment with 73,510 jobs in June 2007.
Job losses alone do not explain the state and county’s record-high unemployment totals, Eagan said.
The civilian labor force — which includes anyone 16 and older who either has a job or is looking for work — has been growing in the county and statewide despite fewer jobs available, according to the Employment Department.
More people are postponing retirement and staying in the work force, and second-wage income earners such as spouses who previously didn’t work and retirees are re-entering the work force. Additionally, more people are continuing their job search longer than they would normally without finding work, Eagan said.
Unemployment trends
Oregon’s 12.4 percent unemployment rate is the second-highest in the nation, behind only Michigan, which had a 14.1 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in May, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report issued June 19.
The Midwestern state, which has been decimated by the loss of auto industry-related jobs, has seen its civilian labor force shrink from 4.97 million in April 2007 to 4.78 million in April 2008, according to the state’s labor Web site.
Meanwhile, Oregon’s civilian labor force grew from 1.91 million to nearly 2 million over the same time period, according to the state’s employment Web site.
The collapse of the housing market — one part of the asset bubble that also included stocks, retirement savings and other investments — also contributed to the rise in the civilian labor force in Oregon and other Western states, said Timothy Duy, adjunct professor of economics at the University of Oregon.
People who were living off their assets, particularly in a resort community like Central Oregon, were forced to go back to work when they saw their houses and other investments lose value last year, said Duy, who follows the region closely and authors the quarterly Central Oregon Business Index.
“As assets became increasingly impaired and foreclosures started rising, the labor force started (increasing) quickly,” Duy said. “That started a process where the unemployment rate started spiking.”
Mounting job losses also contributed to the rising unemployment rate, which spiked nearly 10 percentage points over the past 12 months — from 7 percent to 16.7 percent, Duy said. Both trends, an increasing number of people who had lost equity in their homes and money in investments, and an increasing number of people who lost their jobs, increased the rate of unemployment, he said.
The county is on track this year — with 1,661 notices of default through Wednesday — to easily surpass the record 1,928 notices of default filed in 2008, but notices appear to have peaked in April. A notice of default is the first step in the foreclosure process but doesn’t always result in bank repossession.
While the unemployment rate could still go higher in coming months, the high unemployment numbers are more of a lagging indicator for the region, a fallout from the overheated housing economy, said Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, which promotes development in the region.
“It cannot be overstated that while it is definitely a painful process, there is a purpose to the business cycle,” he said. “We’d like to have it a lot less deep and prolonged, but we’re seeing people get lean and mean.”
Hardest hit
Construction and manufacturing have been hard hit throughout the region, accounting for roughly half the region’s unemployed workers, but several industries, while battered, are still holding their own, Lee said.
Lane Lehrke, 42, who moved to Bend in 2003 with his wife and two children, bought a home and worked for a local builder as a production manager until October, when he was laid off due to lack of work. He had owned his own company in Oregon City before he joined the Bend builder.
But Lehrke has not been able to find work in the construction field, despite sending out résumés to five different Western states and online sites, he said.
“I have put in résumés in lots of places,” Lehrke said. “I have gotten a lot of nonresponses. Very rarely do I get a response.”
Lehrke, while collecting unemployment, still makes $400 monthly payments to pay for the cost of his builder’s license, insurance and bonding, he said.
“I’ve got some opportunities in the fall,” he said, referring to potential jobs in Portland. “A lot of it has to do with stimulus funding.”
What comes out of the current trough in the business cycle will depend upon how much the county diversifies its employment base, said Lee.
Construction was 11.7 percent of the total work force in May 2007, and is 8 percent today, according to the Employment Department. Manufacturing, meanwhile, was 7.7 percent of the work force in May 2007, and is 6.9 percent today.
“This place is not tanking,” Lee said. “There are indicators of economic activity still going on here.”
The economy needs more diversity, but is not on a tipping point like it was in the 1980s, Lee said.
That was when the region’s mills were crippled by changing forest policies and the area began to rebuild its economy, he said.
“There are a lot of examples in the West where the change in forest policy decimated those areas,” he said. “Central Oregon has done a decent job, but we still need to do better in targeting industries that have promise.”
The region needs to target companies in knowledge-based industries such as renewable energy, software and medical device manufacturing, he said. Global competition is fierce in recruiting “green” companies, which provide top wages and heavy capital investment, Lee said.
Central Oregon has been competitive in its recruiting efforts for those types of companies, Lee said, citing more affordable land in the region, a ready work force and quality of life. Lee expects to find companies that are the right size for the region, possibly landing suppliers for Portland’s growing green manufacturing base.
Companies such as Bend-based dog apparel manufacturer Ruff Wear and Warm Springs Composite Products, which both ship products overseas, are faring well. Others that have been hit hard by the national recession, such as Madras-based manufacturer Bright Wood and Contact Industries in Prineville, are retooling and will eventually provide jobs in Jefferson and Crook counties, Lee said.
“With very few exceptions, these are very sophisticated wood products manufacturing companies,” Lee said. “They will be back with those kinds of jobs. Our challenge is to diversify with other types of jobs.”
OK, without looking, was the title:
or
WHERE ALL THE JOBS HAVE GONE
Right. The first one implies jobs that are gone. The second implies that the jobs are "still there", they are just hanging out somewhere smoking cigg's or something.
Very sleezy writing, and something I guarantee Costa jumped in to change. Sooooo... the first is a more appropriate title, but of course it is the second that was actually used. You can tell, because the writer uses the obviously "correct" title in his second paragraph:
You find, of course, there is no answer to either.
WHERE ALL THE JOBS HAVE GONE.
So it is a STATEMENT, not a question. And it appears that the answer is NOWHERE. They're just gone. They aren't hiding somewhere, waiting to be found.
You gotta love these softball pieces, where the reader is treated like they are 5 yrs old.
Where have all the jobs gone? And how will the region look when it recovers?
Here's the real answer: Most of that employment near the peak was FAUX JOBS & FAKE BUSINESSES, 100% fake and unneeded and unsustainable jobs, businesses that never had a chance.
Building houses no one wanted. Mortgage brokers hired, apprasiers for falsified appraisals. And all the "multiplier" jobs: All the jobs & businesses that were spawned from a credit-fabricated bubble, to feed demand that had no basis in reality.
Those jobs are gone. And the "multiplier" jobs; the coffee shack purchases, the Jamba Juices, the oil changes and all the other stuff that "fuels" those faux jobs will soon be gone too.
Remember the local business index that the Bully used to print? Well, one of the most out-of-control pieces of that index was the Help Wanted ad count.
Over the course of just a few years, it went from 1-2,000 to something like 12,000!
THAT was the bubble. Well, at least it showed the jobs bubble that happened here. We should have known FULL WELL something was wrong when we saw that stat.
But we didn't despite have sharp as nails local experts making the following observations:
Experts who study the region’s labor trends agree that the region’s housing market and construction activity became overheated during the boom years between 2004 and 2006.
Wow.
Do you think so, Costa?
Funny. In this sentence, it starts out regarding experts studying the "region's labor trends", and ends up with a conclusion about our "overheated" construction market.
Standard bamboozling bullshit.
And what's great is although we are promised some sort of insight into what the area will morph into, the piece never delivers:
“I don’t know what we’re shifting to, but when you look at that loss in (mining, logging and construction) jobs in just the last two years, it is safe to say the development-based economy has slowed,” said Carolyn Eagan, the region’s economist for the Oregon Employment Department.
“I don’t know what we’re shifting to. I don’t think we’ll know until it’s happened.”
Is this one of the "EXPERTS", Costa? Seriously.
She is really going out on a ledge here, with such forward-looking statements as:
...it is safe to say the development-based economy has slowed
Dang. I guess maye she looked over at the sidebar and saw the following stat:
Mining, logging and construction 8,420 to 5,370 (jobs) — Down 36.2%
Nice touch. The strangely globbed together industries of mining, logging and construction has LOST ONE THIRD of it's job base, and THE EXPERT has made the observation that THE DEVELOPMENT BASED PORTION OF OUR ECONOMY HAS SLOWED.
Never "shrunk". Not "lost". No, no. Slowed.
Q: "Dude, are you feeling better after that motorcycle accident where you lost your fucking arms and legs?"
A: "Fuck dude, I didn't LOSE anything! They were just slowed!"
Q: "Dude, did you also become retarded?"
So, needless to say there is a ton of Costa-fueled double-talk in this piece. But there are also outright contradictions of earlier "assertions":
The collapse of the housing market — one part of the asset bubble that also included stocks, retirement savings and other investments — also contributed to the rise in the civilian labor force in Oregon and other Western states, said Timothy Duy, adjunct professor of economics at the University of Oregon.
People who were living off their assets, particularly in a resort community like Central Oregon, were forced to go back to work when they saw their houses and other investments lose value last year, said Duy, who follows the region closely and authors the quarterly Central Oregon Business Index.
Remember, way back when, we were told repeatedly that BECAUSE Cent OR had such a huge Asset-Rich retirement base, that we were essentially IMMUNE to unemployment anymore?
Uh huh. All those IDLE MILLIONAIRES just stuffing westside houses, didn't need to work, or do anything but cycle all day, and get their cocks sucked all night by their best friends wife, while Bledsoe swallowed donkey cum buckets.
Welp, all of a sudden those motha fuckas need money, and are starting to take jobs at McDonalds.
These are the WAKE UP AND SMELL REALITY Cali-banger dumbfucks who thought they'd come here and never work another fucking second in their lives... dead ass broke.
THAT is who is UNEMPLOYED, that is what's come outta the fucking woodwork. Costa told us we'd all ride a magic carpet of affluence FOREVER cuz these motherfuckers would never stop CUMMING here, and showering us with BILLIONS.
Yeah, these fuckers are BROKE.
Finally, we get Roger Lee's take, who basically says it was over months ago, and it's great that it happened:
While the unemployment rate could still go higher in coming months, the high unemployment numbers are more of a lagging indicator for the region, a fallout from the overheated housing economy, said Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, which promotes development in the region.
“It cannot be overstated that while it is definitely a painful process, there is a purpose to the business cycle,” he said. “We’d like to have it a lot less deep and prolonged, but we’re seeing people get lean and mean.”
It's all good with Lee. His mother could get her head cut off in a fucking car wreck, and Lee would spin that shit as something she really needed to happen anyway. Yeah, she gettin' "lean and mean", right Roger?
OK, enough about the Bully's non-stop bullshit machine. Not much to say about this next nugg, but man it hurts:
Woof, that is a hideous hit to US net worth, down from $12.5 trillion or so, to below $7.5T and still falling. Keep in mind that is a 57 year chart.
If you extrapolate out some sort of bottoming process, it could easily go on for 15-20 years.
And that's just "stabilizing": We'll NEVER hit the peak values of 2006 in our LIFETIMES.
Couple this with NAR, who continues to try to make the salad days appear by reinstating practices that caused this mess to begin with:
Real Estate Associations Want Appraisers To Inflate Home Prices
The housing is still struggling because appraisers are being too tough assessing the value of homes.
That's the self-serving argument being made by realtors who are complaining that lower appraisal values of homes are delaying deals, ruining sales and prolonging the housing crisis.
Appraisal fraud was an enormous contributor to the unsustainable run up in prices during the boom period. Many (but not all) mortgage brokers and realtors referred buyers to appraisers that ALWAYS hit the number of the home purchase price
Now, NAR and other real estate lobbying groups, who are trying to maintain stay in business despite the total destruction of their market, are mobilizing a major effort to reach out to Congress and housing officials.
As NAR economist Lawrence Yun said earlier this week, "Lenders are using appraisers who may not be familiar with a neighborhood, or who compare traditional homes with distressed and discounted sales." Instead, Yun and his bunch want appraisers who won't be too tough. As Yun puts it, "There is danger of a delayed housing market recovery and a further rise in foreclosures if the appraisal problems are not quickly corrected."
And what about the RIDICULOUSLY LUCRATIVE easy-life of local moving companies? Well, they are finally getting their comeuppance!
Housing, unemployment woes leave movers shaken
Sinking home prices and a weak job market have forced normally restless Americans to stay put in an uncharacteristic shift that has, among other things, clobbered the moving industry.
Yeah, basically the moving trade is imploding. But still we need local Government bureaucrats to save us from these sleezy fuckers, who are barely holding on by their fingernails:
'Sting' targets unlicensed movers, so you're not stung
You can read the piece direct, but the comments tell of the outrage over such bullshit:
Native Oregonian says:
2 days ago, 04:19:51 PM
"When I was a kid my brothers and I made money by doing yardwork for neighbors, babysitting, having kool-aide stands, washing cars. and doing housework for neighbors. I suppose most of the above would now require bonding, licensing, permitting, liability insurance, etc. Thankfully, we were never sued and all our "clients" seemed happy with the work we did and even tipped us sometimes.
Yes, all these monstrous state agencies are supposed to "protect" the consumer but they just create more out-of-control spending government with perks and pers. A claim against a contractor needs to go through a long process and even when the contractor is licensed and bonded, if he (she) files bankruptcy, your claim could be released in the process regardless of their bonding.
Oregon Construction Contractors Board allows the licensed contractor 6 months to pay a judgement or settlement agreement before a bonding company is involved if they fail to pay. Oregon licensed contractors can appeal the decision and again this takes months. Who pays for any necessary immediate repairs?
So, do you think this highly over-regulated state will pay your claim? Nada. Many bonds are for $10K and if you as a homeowner get a judgement over the bonded amount, all you are left with is a piece of paper that you likely will not collect on, over the bonded amount of money.
I tried to find someone to do some weeding for me this summer. Every licensed landscaper, or yard worker wanted from $40-$67 HOURLY. They explained that was because of the high cost of the state requirements for licensing. I did not use them.
Did all the people working at Cessna that are unemployed or soon to be unemployed make that much money? I personally would hire an unlicensed mover, yard worker or babysitter any time I could and use my own resources to determine if I feel they are qualified and honest to complete the job properly.
As for my weeding, I found a very dependable, responsible, hard-working and honest person that quickly completed the work I needed done. I paid him $25 an hour and he was not licensed. I am very pleased with his work and more pleased that he is not licensed.
Guest says:
2 days ago, 04:50:15 PM
"Let this be a very important lesson to all you kids out there running those lemonade stands in front of your house,,, If someone say`s "we`re here to help you" RUN !!!!
Guest says:
Yesterday, 04:16:23 PM
"wow that is lame. hurting the little man trying to make a buck! everyone involved in this should be ashamed and apply for work out of the country, karma is a bitch!
There were 18 vehicles caught in this "sting". How many got tickets?
In Thursday's sting, there were 18 vehicle-related violations issued and one was placed out of service for safety violations.
Fucking ODOT scumbags, and they used cops as their THUGS.
This is a bunch of rag-tag, broke ass broke down and out workaday bastards who are just trying to do something to put food on the table, and ODOT hands out tickets to each & every one.
They raise the SPECTRE of unlicensed BANDITS stealing your shit on a meth-fueled, gun toting bender, when that is 100% UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT. These poor fuckers can barely afford to pay attention.
And that's where this thing is going: Vultures stripping the meat off damn near dead carcasses. Cops & ODOT stripping the poor, NAR wants to steal from new homebuyers by inflating the bubble anew.
Everybody in strip-N-flip mode.
hbm, will you please flip and strip me?
Dunc, do you have paper or plastic for my comics?
