Oregon’s unemployment rate has been relatively flat for the last year, staying around 5.2%. But that number comes despite a slight decrease of around 18,000 people who are either working or looking for work.
Is this a sign that the number of people looking to retire picked up again after a recent lull?
State employment economist Gail Krumenauer said the number of retirees in Oregon has been down since a peak between 2023 and 2024.
"It declined a bit in 2025, but has turned up in the most recent numbers,” she said. “So it’s possible that we’re seeing people moving from employed to out of the labor force."
The number remains a relatively small amount of the state’s total workers, which hit a recent peak in November when it topped 2.2 million people. The number of people in the labor force who are at retirement age has increased over recent decades as the baby boomer generation aged.
“In the early-to-mid 1990s, one out of every 10 jobs in Oregon and in the U.S. was held by someone who was 55 or older. Now that’s one in four,” said Krumenauer. “So we’re at the point where the entire baby boom generation is 55 or older, and we’re seeing that increasing pace of retirement happening in Oregon and the U.S. over time.”
Krumenauer said another common reason for a drop in labor force is that people who have been looking for jobs have stopped their search.
