community
july18
2019
11
Digging Deeper into Cap-and-Trade continued from page 9
as you might think, especially when
talking about Columbia County.
A 2017 report from the Oregon
Employment Department titled, “The
Employment Landscape of Rural Or-
egon,” examined recent trends and sta-
tistics concerning jobs in Oregon. The
report noted that “...the heading “Rural
Oregon” is somewhat arbitrary and un-
specific – it captures a broad diversity of
places across the state. There is no one
rural Oregon. About 17% of Oregon’s
population lives in the state’s 23 non-
metropolitan counties.”
Oregon has 36 counties, which
means if 23 are non-metro, then 13 are
considered metro or urban. Joining the
tri-county areas of Multnomah, Wash-
ington, and Clackamas as urban are
Linn, Benton, and Lane (Albany, Cor-
vallis, and Eugene) counties, along with
Marion (Salem), and Deschutes (Bend).
That’s eight. Care to guess which other
counties are considered urban? Yamhill
and Polk, Josephine and Jackson and...
you guessed it, Columbia, which is sta-
tistically considered part of the Portland
metro area.
The report attempted to explain
this confusing perspective this way: “Ur-
ban counties are those defined as part of
a ‘metropolitan statistical area.’ A short-
coming of this definition is that it under-
counts the true impact of rural places.
Areas inside metropolitan counties but
outside city limits – some of them heav-
ily agricultural and quite rural in ap-
pearance and activity – are included as
urban here. Polk County is one example
of a place characterized in federal data
as ‘metropolitan’ because it is part of
the Salem Metropolitan Statistical Area,
but traveling westward on Highway 22
you’d have trouble pointing out urban
features of the landscape in the agricul-
tural valleys and forested coastal range.”
So,
statistically
Columbia
County is considered urban. Unfortu-
nately, Columbia County has performed
more like a rural county when review-
ing employment statistics. According to
the report Oregon has been in a period
of employment expansion since Febru-
ary 2010. In October 2014 statewide em-
ployment levels actually exceeded the
pre-recession peak, indicating the reces-
sion was over. However, in rural Oregon
the recovery is ongoing. Employment
remains 3.2% below the pre-recession
peak in Oregon’s combined rural coun-
ties, while urban counties as a group
are solidly above their pre-recession
peak employment. Columbia and Jose-
phine counties were the only two “ur-
ban” counties that were still below pre-
recession peak employment: Columbia
County was at -1.6% while counties like
Multnomah and Deschutes showed re-
covery of jobs at +9% while Washington
County showed over 12%.
The Employment Landscape of
Rural Oregon also reports these other
general findings:
• A variety of factors have led to a much
slower recovery in rural Oregon. Less
industry diversity in the rural economy
increases vulnerability to economic
shocks. The rural population and work-
force are aging quickly, and rural Oregon
needs improved access to infrastructure
in order to get rural goods to market.
• The jobs that have returned in non-met-
ro counties have been largely low wage,
while jobs in high-wage industries re-
main below pre-recession levels in rural
areas.
• Rural economies are often dependent
on a single business or a certain type of
economic activity, and if that business
suffers, local workers may have difficul-
ty finding a similar role using their skills
at another business.
So yes, employment statistics in
general show recovery in Oregon’s ur-
ban areas, but those statistics appear to
be very flawed. “Rural” communities in
Oregon continue to struggle, including
those statistically considered “urban.”
How important is timber to Oregon’s
economy?
Oregon’s soils and climate
provide ideal conditions to grow com-
mercially viable timber, and histori-
cally the timber industry has been
a vital economic driver in Oregon’s
economy. Forests cover more than 30
million of Oregon’s 62 million acres
– almost half of the state’s landmass.
The Oregon Department of For-
estry (ODF) estimates logging harvests
totaled 3.9 billion board feet in 2016,
a steep drop from the historic levels of
the 1980s when harvests were at twice
those levels. Still, Oregon’s forests cre-
ate jobs and income for workers and
families in planting, growing, and har-
vesting, and in related wood products
industries. But what exactly does Or-
egon’s timber industry look like today?
According to the Oregon Em-
ployment Department, Oregon current-
ly employs approximately 1.9 million
people. According to the Oregon Forest
Resources Institute, forest sector-related
employment in Oregon totaled 61,100
jobs in 2017, which accounted for 3% of
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Oregon’s workforce, including primary
and secondary forest products, forest
management, forestry support, and for-
estry-dependent industries. Primary for-
est products made up one-third of the for-
est sector total with 19,300 jobs. Within
primary forest products, sawmills, paper
manufacturing, and softwood veneer,
and plywood manufacturing accounted
for three-fourths of all jobs.
Those numbers have been in
decline since 2001, especially between
2005 and 2009, but have since leveled
off, and often vary seasonally.
Somewhat surprisingly, of Or-
egon’s 61,100 forest sector jobs, almost
39,500 (65%) of those jobs were found
at establishments in metropolitan coun-
ties, although it’s not so surprising giv-
en the above information about what is
statistically considered rural Oregon,
while 19,900 forest-related jobs (33%)
belonged to businesses in rural counties.
Another 1,600 jobs (3%) were in multi-
area or unclassified locations.
Although metro counties ac-
counted for twice as many timber related
jobs, forest sector employment made up
7% of all rural employment, compared
with 2% of all the jobs in the 13 coun-
ties that make up the eight Oregon met-
ropolitan areas. In Columbia County 829
people worked in forest sector jobs in
2017, or 6.3% of the population.
More importantly, forest sec-
tor jobs in rural areas paid significantly
more than the average jobs found there.
That was the case in Columbia County
where forest jobs paid from $10,000
– $20,000 (26-55%) higher than aver-
age jobs across the county. In Clatsop
County forest sector jobs paid an aver-
age of $70,600, compared with $36,800
for all jobs. Lincoln County was simi-
lar, with an average annual forest sector
wage ($68,400) that was 86% above the
all-job average ($31,200).
Does corporate money impact politics
in Oregon?
A four-part investigation pub-
lished by The Oregonian/OregonLive
this spring titled “Polluted by Money –
How Corporate Cash Corrupted One of
the Greenest States in America,” found
that Oregon’s lack of campaign finance
limits (one of only five states that have
no limits at all) has made the state one
of the most influenced by corporate
spending. The Oregonian found a clear
impact on environmental policy, “...cre-
ating an easy regulatory climate where
industry gets what it wants, again and
again.”
The Oregonian found that, while
Oregon ranks as the 27 th largest state by
population, it ranks 6 th in total corporate
funds given per lawmaker, and 1 st in the
country in corporate donations to law-
makers per capita. The timber industry
was at the forefront, giving more to Or-
egon lawmakers than in any other state.
Timber wasn’t the only indus-
try making big donations to Oregon
lawmakers, with the state ranking 1 st in
money received from fish processors,
grocers, and soft drink companies, 2 nd
in contributions from restaurants and
lodging, 3 rd from drug companies and
food processors, 4 th from tobacco and
business associations, 5 th from trucking,
chemical, and waste management, 6 th
continued on page 14
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503-429-1470
cell 503.789.1268
fax 503.429.0252
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