The economic crisis created by COVID-19 has led to unprecedented shrinkage in the job market. Across industries, workers are facing reduced hours, temporary furloughs, and permanent layoffs. Hiring, however, has not stopped. Companies are working to fill openings that existed before the outbreak and to bring on new employees to meet changes in demand caused by the crisis.
Job postings show who is hiring and what jobs they need to fill. Tracking job posting trends and comparing them to the previous month and 2019 averages shows changes in the labor market. The tables below detail the industries (Table 3) and occupations (Table 5) with the largest number of postings during the past month.
Jobs that require working in close proximity to others (excluding healthcare workers) have likely been impacted the most by measures aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 in Portland Metro. There are an estimated 181,380 such jobs in the region, 20% of all jobs. For comparison, this same set of jobs makes up 29% of the overall US workforce.
Between November and December 2020, the total number of unique job postings in Portland Metro was 102,000. This represents a slight increase from the previous month and an eleven percent increase for the same period in 2019. The four companies with the greatest number of online postings, two had a higher number of postings in 2020 (Oracle and Aerotek) and the others (Nike, OHSU) had had fewer postings than during the same period last year.
The most in demand occupations were Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers (4,493 unique postings), Software Developers (4,484 unique postings), and Registered Nurses (4,216 unique postings). This represents an increase from the previous period during the previous year for software developers (+32%), nurses (+25%), and truck drivers (+64%).
