A combination of slow job growth and increasing unemployment is making it harder for out-of-work Oregonians to find a job.

The exception may be Oregon’s private health care and social services industry, which continues to add jobs at a faster rate than other industries in the state.

The most recent quarterly jobs vacancy report from the Oregon Employment Department showed nearly 14,500 job openings in private health care and social services during the last quarter of 2025. That’s nearly one-third of all openings, and represents the only sector in Oregon with more than 10,000 jobs available, according to the report.

“There’s hiring happening in all industries across the state,” said Anna Johnson, senior state economist at the Oregon Employment Department and report author. “But health care and social assistance has nearly three times the number of job vacancies as the next highest industry.”

The most recent survey comes as Oregon’s economy is in rough shape. The unemployment rate has steadily ticked up over the last year to more than 5%, surpassing the national average. At the same time, the state’s population growth has stalled and the cost of housing has increased. Those indicators warn that the state’s economy is slowing.

Overall, the 46,300 job vacancies private companies posted toward the end of last year are 14% fewer vacancies than over the summer, and 7% fewer than the same period in 2024, according to Johnson at OED.

“We do see a significant amount of seasonality in our hiring,” Johnson said. “The winter — so the first quarter — usually slows down a little bit. Summer and fall, sometimes spring too, we tend to see more hiring. The fact that this was a drop for the fall stood out.”

A third of job vacancies were in the Portland metro area. Private employers in the East Cascades region reported the next highest number.

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Johnson said the employment department has been conducting the survey for more than a decade. It goes out to private employers in Oregon with two or more employees. The survey asks what the company is hiring for, if it’s full- or part-time, the educational requirements, starting wage and if the position is difficult to fill.

“We’re one of the few states that does something like this, on this level,” Johnson said. “It gives us a really interesting insight into how businesses are feeling at the moment because we’re hearing directly from them.”

For the final quarter of 2025, Johnson found that Oregon had just over two unemployed workers for every job vacancy. That’s much higher than the national average of just over one unemployed worker for every vacancy.

Most job vacancies, nearly 26,000, averaged at a starting wage of $20 or more per hour. Nearly 17,000 vacancies were offering an average wage below that. Nearly 80% of the open positions were full-time, and more than 90% were permanent jobs. More than a third required some education beyond high school.

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Private employers also said nearly half of the state’s vacancies were difficult to fill, meaning they have been vacant for a month or more. The survey shows restaurant cooks, personal care aides, truck drivers and social service assistants are among the positions that are most difficult to fill.

The next survey is due out at the end of April. Johnson said she’ll be looking to see if wages are rising. She’s also keeping an eye on the state’s manufacturing industry, which has been shedding jobs. The industry includes manufacturers in a wide range of sectors, including transportation equipment, electronics and timber products.

In fall 2025 manufacturers had nearly 1,800 job vacancies, nearly 3,600 fewer than reported at the same time in 2024.

“The thing the past two quarters that I’ve really noticed is that manufacturing hiring has just completely dropped off,” Johnson said. “We’ve been watching manufacturing [jobs] for a couple of years, and over the past two or three years they’ve been on a significant decline.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/18/oregon-job-vacancies-report/