The Rose City, full of microbreweries, hipster hangouts and bicycle enthusiasts, is well-known as a hub of American youth culture. But during the past decade, Portland has seen an influx of young adults struggling to find employment.
In March, the Portland metropolitan area saw a jump in the unemployment rate to 11.8 percent. Now, with 140,800 people in the city without jobs and more career seekers arriving every year, hopeful employees are finding a cutthroat race for even minimum wage jobs.
Demographers from the Census Bureau found that 22.5 percent of the city’s population is 20 to 34 years old, filling the city with what Wade Christensen, a journalism graduate student at the University, sees as job-seekers lowest on the employment totem pole.
“I think the hipsters are going to have a hard time with the job market in Portland,” Christensen said. “The whole basis for being a hipster is dependent upon having disposable income and a decent job, and that is drying up quickly.”
Christensen has been working since the age of 12 and has seen his share of difficulty.
“When I was trying to find a job, I looked for something that I had experience doing and that I thought I wouldn’t hate,” Christensen said. “However, with the economy being what it is, I have had to start looking for anything.”
Portland is one of the few cities youth are moving to as migration within the U.S. slows, jobs disappear and home prices fall, according to the Census Bureau. The city has attracted college-educated, single people between the ages of 25 and 39 at a higher rate than most other cities in the country. Between 1995 and 2000, the city added 268 people in that demographic for every 1,000 of the same group living there in 1995. Only four other metropolitan areas had a higher ratio.
The influx of new residents, however, is part of the reason the unemployment rate in the Portland metropolitan area has more than doubled over the past year, and is now three points above the national average of 8.9 percent.
Brittany McGrath graduated from the University in June 2008 and worked as the assistant to the publisher at Surface magazine in San Francisco. After about four months at Surface, she was laid off.
“After searching for jobs, I found there was nothing out there,” McGrath said. “I didn’t want to get stuck with a job that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. Therefore, I started a magazine doing my dream job.”
Now doing well in this economic climate, McGrath is the editor in chief and founder of Button Magazine. She said her publication is designed for the youth in Portland. University of Oregon students and alumni comprise 95 of the magazine’s staff members.
While McGrath has seen some success in her nascent career, students such as Sam Sanborn have been less fortunate. Sanborn will graduate this term with a political science degree and has already moved to Portland to begin his positions as a stock person in a bookstore and a prep cook.
“It is astounding how much competition there are for these seemingly lowly jobs,” Sanborn said. “If I hadn’t had upwards of 10 different similar jobs before leaving college, I would have had no chance.”
Sanborn began his job search with higher hopes of success.
“I came (to Portland) expecting to get a high-paying internship. I foolishly hinged all of my plans on this internship because they were calling me in for a second interview and ended up not getting the job,” Sanborn said.
Josh Netzer, senior experience program manager for the University’s journalism school at the George S. Turnbull Center in Portland, has seen similar challenges for students.
“Recently, the most changes have been in terms of competition. There are far more young professionals competing for the very limited number of opportunities available,” Netzer said. “Unfortunately, in many cases, a lot of professional organizations and corporations have to ask themselves, ‘Who among us is contributing to the organization and who among us is detracting from the organization?’”
While Portland may be a city of highly competitive opportunities, Sanborn found his undergraduate studies ill-qualified to prepare him for the working world.
“Eugene has become a bubble in which young adults can hide from the fact that they are not learning anything that is going to make them any money, something they are going to wish, vehemently and often, they had not done,” Sanborn said.
However, Netzer believes students with previous internships, a solid portfolio and a superb attitude will still find desirable jobs.
“Portland offers a lot of opportunities outside of the University environment. In addition, it has a lot of employment opportunities,” Netzer said.
For Christensen, Portland remains a cool city that attracts a lot of talented people, making it hard for job seekers.
“You’re not competing with a bunch of random people; you’re competing with folks who are really good at what they do. And they have been doing it for longer and in bigger markets,” Christensen said.
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