Lane County’s economy lost over 17,000 jobs in the past five years, but now is slowly beginning to get some of them back.
Lane County’s economy lost over 17,000 jobs in the past five years, but now is slowly beginning to get some of them back.
The [jobs] disappeared in three successive waves, starting with losses in construction and manufacturing when the recession first hit in 2008, followed by layoffs in retail and services, then by layoffs in local education.
Half of the jobs that have disappeared are in manufacturing. Some industries, such as Lane County’s luxury RV manufacturing, probably won’t ever regain their former strength, economists predict. Other industries, such as financial activities and leisure and hospitality, have added jobs in the past year, but very slowly, and have a long way to go to make up what they’ve lost since 2007.
Bill Conerly, an economist based in Lake Oswego and a member of The Register-Guard Board of Economists, forecasts that in time the jobs will return, and largely in the order in which they disappeared — except for construction, which will take longer to mend than in past recoveries, and wood products manufacturing, which he doesn’t expect to return for several years.
Read more at The Register-Guard.
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