Unemployment and Underemployment – Oregon

Think Oregon’s 9.5 percent unemployment is bad? Try 19.6 percent, once everyone’s counted, By Richard Read, August 16, 2011, The Oregonian: “In the official world of government reports, Oregon’s economy has stalled at 9.5 percent unemployment with almost no job growth since February. Economists call the July numbers, issued Tuesday, distressing. And in the real world inhabited by Scott Pickard and many others no longer counted as jobless, actual unemployment is far higher. Pickard, 49, of Tigard, lost a human-resources job in early 2009, exhausted his unemployment benefits and moved in with his mother in February. Pickard scrapes by. He earns a few bucks coaching other jobless people on interviewing skills. He falls into a broader government measure, called the U-6, of under- and unemployed people. Some label this figure, a whopping 19.6 percent in Oregon during the year that ended March 31, the real unemployment rate. Oregon’s ‘U-6’ rate is fourth highest in the country, behind Nevada, California and Michigan. It’s far above the national 16.5 percent U-6 level…”