Oregon’s most populous county lost 1% of its jobs from June 2024 to 2025 even as the state overall saw positive job growth.
Downtown Portland seen from Goose Hollow on Jul 28, 2025.
Francisca Benitez, Francisca Benitez / OPB
Multnomah County, home to Portland, makes up a quarter of Oregon’s workforce.
“There are about 2 million jobs in the entire state of Oregon — and Multnomah County accounts for 500,000 of them,” Jake Procino, economist with the Oregon Employment Department, said. “Multnomah County has an overwhelming impact on the state’s numbers.”
In contrast, Oregon overall has added around 4,700 jobs overall, representing a growth rate of 0.4%. Marion and Polk Counties had the fastest rates of job growth at 1.7%.
Procino says most areas of the state have rebounded from the deep job cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Portland, however, has not.
“Multnomah County has yet to recover to the employment levels seen in 2019,” Procino said, “while the state of Oregon has recovered.”
The healthcare industry did add positions, but Procino said those were eclipsed by losses in construction and manufacturing.
It remains to be seen how Multnomah County’s losses will ripple through Oregon, but economists often consider major cities as a bellwether for a region’s economy. The state still has a relatively low unemployment rate at 4.9%, but it’s ticked up from 4.1% in December.