The number of Oregon job vacancies has fallen sharply since last spring, but the state still had 86,000 job openings last fall, according to the latest quarterly survey from the Oregon Employment Department.
That’s down by a fifth in six months but still far higher than before the pandemic, when Oregon had just 51,000 unfilled jobs. The pandemic scrambled employment patterns and hiring needs, leaving organizations across Oregon and all over the country desperate to hire.
Vacancies remain elevated in fields that shut down during the pandemic, retail clerks, restaurant cooks and waiters among them. And health care jobs remain in especially short supply.