Although the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the national recession officially ended in June 2009, cities around the country, such as Eugene, are still reeling from its effects.
The country is currently in an economic recovery stage, but it might not seem like it to the average civilian and business owner here in
Eugene, where the unemployment rate currently hovers around 10 percent, according to the Oregon Labor Market Information System.
More job postings and the emergence of more small businesses in Eugene are promising signs for college students quickly approaching the “real world” of careers and incomes.
College students who are graduating into this economic recovery period are advised to look at both short-term and long-term solutions.
“You want to get employed in a job that advances your career,” said Michael Meyers, workforce analyst at Oregon Employment Department in Lane County.
In Oregon, there has been a trend of the creation of small businesses by people who have been laid off or have fears about the economy.
“People want a back-up plan,” said Jim Lindly, director of Lane Community College’s Business Development Center and Employee Training
department. “They’re nervous about jobs. They’re not seeing a lot of major turn-around yet.”
Not everyone is cut out to open their own business, Lindly said, adding that it has an amount of risk associated with it.
The University of Oregon Index of Economic Indicators, directed by University economics professor Tim Duy, found that there were a total of 1,130 help-wanted advertisements in the Register-Guard in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, according to the Oregon Index of Economic Indicators website.
Locally, the unemployment rate in the Eugene and Springfield area reached almost 12 percent in January and has since decreased to around 10 percent in August, according to the Oregon Labor Market Information System. Oregon’s unemployment rate has been hovering around 10.7 percent, while the national rate is at 9.6 percent. Oregon has the seventh-highest unemployment rate in the country, after Nevada, Michigan, California, Rhode Island, Florida and South Carolina, according to the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Of the total 139,100 nonfarm employment in the Eugene-Springfield area in August, 111,300 was in the private sector, according to the Oregon Labor Market
Information System.
The manufacturing sector in Eugene was hit the hardest during the recession, but Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, said all sectors have experienced difficulty during the bad economy.
Health-care jobs and government fared the best during the economic recession, and health-care jobs are expected to increase over the long haul, Meyers said.
“Government has been the main hirer of young college grads over the past year,” University economics professor Mark Thoma wrote on the Economist’s View blog. “And why not? Government jobs are safer, they pay well and have better benefits than the private sector.”
The national economic recession, which started in December 2007, was the longest downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
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