For years Eugene has been home to high unemployment and a stagnant economic climate. In 2002 and 2003, Oregon and Washington state had the highest rates of unemployment in the nation, but, in a still turbulent economic environment, the region’s economy might be stabilizing.
This year Oregon recorded the largest over-the-year unemployment drop in the nation, with a decrease of 1.9 percentage points, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment rates count the number of capable unemployed workers actively searching for work.
Although the state still has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates, ahead only of Alaska and the District of Columbia, the shift puts Oregon’s unemployment percentage closer to the national rate, according to the BLS Web site.
Jack Roberts, executive director of Lane Metro Partnership, a private organization that promotes the Eugene-Springfield area and aids businesses, said the unemployment of the past few years was overstated.
“Part of the reason our unemployment was so high was because people kept
coming to the state despite the lack of jobs. That didn’t happen in the ’80s,”
Roberts said.
Terry Connolly, director of government affairs for the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, said the local economy has had a slow, steady recovery.
“We haven’t fully stepped out of the recession from two years ago,” Connolly said. “As many have predicted, areas like Eugene would be the first into the recession and the last ones out.”
Roberts said the state’s reputation as a bad place for businesses was also wrong
in some ways.
“It’s often talked about, but I think
it’s overblown. In the ’90s we had a
good economy. When the recession hit we were dependent on high-tech. We lost
all that we had gained,” Roberts said.
“We had gone from timber to the next cyclical industry.”
The city of Eugene has pushed hard to boost economic development and provide advantages for local businesses in an effort to rebuild the downtown economy. For the past six months, the City of Eugene Committee on Economic Development, a city organization composed of city workers and local business owners, has evaluated city economic policy.
Roberts said the Eugene downtown has made a substantial recovery already.
“I’ve had the chance to talk to people who are from out of town and they talk about how active it is,” he said. “We’ve come a long way from where we once were. [However,] we tend to accentuate
the negative.”
Additionally, both Eugene and Springfield have several large civic projects in the works.
Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, said he sees such projects as investments in the region’s economic future.
“A sign of vitality is the amount of activity that is planned or underway,” Hauser said. He noted the recent plans for the new federal courthouse, basketball arena, the hospital in Springfield, work on the airport and improvements to Interstate 5 in the area.
“Potentially in the next 24 to 36 months those projects represent $1 billion of construction, and it also creates new jobs,” Hauser said.
Hauser added that the University also helps boost the city and state’s economic health.
“No doubt, the University is the engine that drives the local economy,” Hauser said. “It’s the largest employer in town and the University itself is a factor in job creation.”
Hauser said University projects, such as the construction at Autzen Stadium and the Lillis Business Complex, bring jobs to town, but that the University’s expansion into sponsored scientific research projects and development of new ideas and technologies helps to stimulate the local economy.
In July the University was slated by the federal government to receive a total of $8 million in grants to study brain function and nanotechnology. The bill earmarked $5 million for the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), a consortium of nanotech researchers which includes the University, Oregon State University, Portland State University, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and additional business partners.
Sponsored program grants now total more than $70 million annually, according to the Website of the University’s vice president for research and graduate studies’.
Roberts said the University also provides a cultural diversity and a skilled workforce that makes the area attractive to businesses and their employees. He has heard of businesses sending workers here temporarily, only to find that they do not want to leave.
“The University provides opportunities that make this place desirable — makes people want to stay,” he said.

Steven R. Neuman is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald.