September 2019 Oregon Regional Economic Indicators

Good morning. Below is the University of Oregon Regional Economic Indexes for September 2019. The release date is December 5, 2019. We thank KeyBank for their generous support of this project.

Link to full report (with many charts!) here.

Regional economies in Oregon remained solid in September as the economic expansion that began more than ten years ago remains intact.

• For all regions covered by this report, moving average measures (which smooth monthly volatility) were above zero, indicating an above-trend pace of activity (trend activity differs across regions).
• The Rogue Valley area saw a slightly negative reading attributable to a dip in the labor force. This component can be volatile and one reading by itself is not necessarily meaningful; note though that labor force growth is generally slowing throughout much of the state and may contribute to tighter labor markets due to lack of available new employees.
• Housing markets are generally solid (having largely recovered from some softness late last year and early this year) although price appreciation has slowed in some markets such as the Portland area.
• Low levels of initial unemployment claims strongly contributed to these measures and point to continuing job growth.
• In short, regional economies continue to move forward despite any concerns about recession that emerged earlier this year.