Good morning. Below is the University of Oregon Regional Economic Indexes for February 2021. The release date is April 15, 2021. We thank KeyBank for their generous support of this project.
Oregon Regional Economic Indicators
Growth accelerated in Oregon’s largest metro regions as the Covid-19 pandemic eased in February. All regional measures of economic activity improved during the month. Highlights of the report include:
- Employment components were generally supportive with particularly large contributions from the leisure and hospitality sector. This sector was disproportionally negatively impacted by the pandemic and will experience strong growth as the pandemic loosens its hold on the economy.
- Improving air passenger traffic resulted in substantial positive contributions to all the smaller regional airports. Tourism and travel activity have picked up strongly in Central Oregon leading to a large contribution from the lodging revenue component.
- Housing markets remain solid with strong contributions from sales but only neutral contributions from new housing permits in most regions. Housing demand should remain strong as the Millennial generation ages into its homebuying years. On net this suggests upward pressure on pricing although the recent rise in mortgage rates will likely help temper price growth.
- Municipal waste measures generally continue to make modestly above-neutral contributions; this recession has been unusual in that purchases of goods rose which likely increased the waste stream. Also, unlike the last recession, construction activity, another contributor to waste, did not collapse.
