April 2014 Portland OR Economic Indicators…
From: Christian Kaylor, Workforce Analyst / Economist at the Oregon Employment Department
The regional unemployment rate continues its steady decline as job growth continues at a robust pace. Construction employment growth is red hot as most other industries are growing. Both high and low wage service industry jobs are showing strong growth.
The real estate market is demonstrating more complicated trends. Last year, the region saw a lot of growth in residential building permits in the first quarter. Those numbers are now down 28% from last year. Most of that downward movement is in multi family projects as single family home permits remain flat. Among the multi family permits, the City of Portland alone is 61 percent of all projects in the region, with the bulk of the rest in the City of Vancouver.
Per Capita Personal Income (PCPI) is a popular metric for measuring economic prosperity. The Portland region, and Oregon in general, has fallen behind the US in recent years for PCPI. Newly released data, shows the Portland region improving quickly in 2012, outperforming most of the US.
Check out: PORTLAND ECONOMIC INDICATORS April 2014