Oregon’s unemployment rate dropped below 9% in December for the first time in three years.
Oregon’s unemployment rate dropped below 9% in December for the first time in three years.
The jobless rate was 8.9 percent last month, the lowest it’s been since November 2008. It ticked down slightly from 9.1 percent the month before but remained higher than the national unemployment rate of 8.5 percent.
“We have made progress, and we still have more to do to get Oregonians back to work in all communities across the state,” Gov. John Kitzhaber said in a statement.
Despite the improvement, nearly 176,000 people in Oregon who were looking for work remained unemployed. Excluding farm work and accounting for seasonal factors, the state Employment Department said the number of jobs has increased by just 4,600 since February 2011, or 0.3 percent. More than 1.6 million people are currently employed in Oregon.
Read more at CBS News.
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