The September 2015 State of Oregon Economic Indexes of was released today. Full report is available here. We thank KeyBank for their generous support of this project.
Regional economic activity was above average across Oregon’s largest metro areas in September. Highlights of the report include:
- Broad labor market components – unemployment rate, civilian labor force, and initial unemployment claims – mostly contributed positively across all regions. Low levels of initial claims indicate that job growth is likely to continue in all regions.
- New housing units permitted were a negative factor in only the Eugene-Springfield and Rogue Valley regions; a jump in permits pulled the component’s Salem contribution into positive territory.
- The Portland metro region continues its rapid pace of activity; solid contributions from a wide array of indicators held the region’s measure at a level consistent with past expansions.
- Housing permits made a strong positive contribution to the Central Oregon measure: steady in-migration is helping regional housing construction activity recover from the steep declines of the Great Recession.
- The Rogue Valley continues to enjoy steady growth despite a soft rebound in new housing activity. Growth in the Salem and Eugene-Springfield continues to track sideways at an above-average pace similar to that experienced in late 1990s.
Reminder: The regional measures are prone to potentially large swings due to the volatility of some of the underlying data, particularly measures of employment. The moving average measures smooth out much of that volatility.
