The percentage of unionized workers in Oregon has gone up in each of the past three years.
The percentage of unionized workers in Oregon reached 17% last year, up from 16.6% in 2008. The number has risen in each of the past three years.
Last year’s increase also reflects heavier job losses in the private sector compared to the public sector.
The increase in the percentage of union workers in Oregon, while the actual number has declined, could be due to where job losses are occurring, said David Kong, statistician with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Industries that are not heavily unionized have lost more jobs than the public sector, which tends to be heavily unionized, he said. For instance, manufacturing jobs declined 11.6 percent and jobs in logging and mining declined 21.2 percent in 2009, while public sector jobs declined just 0.9 percent, he said.
Read the full story at The Register-Guard.
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