August 2018 Regional Economic Indicators

Below is the University of Oregon Regional Economic Indexes for August 2018. The release date is today, October 29, 2018. We thank KeyBank for their generous support of this project.

Oregon Regional Economic Indicators:

Link to full report (with charts) here.

The expansion continues for Oregon’s major metropolitan areas.  Highlights of this month’s report include:

• For all regions covered by this report, in August both raw and moving average measures (which smooth monthly volatility) were above zero, indicating an above-trend pace of activity (trend activity differs across regions).
• With the exception of the Portland and Bend areas, housing permits were again on the soft side in July. Employment components were generally neutral to positive across all regions.
• The contribution from labor force growth turned generally neutral to negative this year; firms may increasingly struggle to hire new employees if this trend continues.
• Low unemployment rates, low levels of initial jobless claims, and solid housing markets supported the measures in August. Waste data also indicates growing regional economies.

There is no indication in the data that the current expansion is likely to end anytime soon.