This story was originally published on YachatsNews.com and is used with permission.
Firings and layoffs of federal workers by the Trump administration are likely to have marked effects on the economies of Oregon’s north coast counties, particularly in Lincoln County.
That’s the assessment of Shaun Barrick, a state workforce economist who, in addition to Lincoln, monitors economic trends in Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook counties.
While the percentage of federal workers compared to total employment doesn’t exceed 2 percent in any of those counties, those jobs nonetheless far exceed average local wages, he said.
Lincoln County’s 313 federal workers, for instance, earn an average of 79 percent more than their non-federal counterparts, according to state data. The percentages in Clatsop (55 percent), Tillamook (44 percent) and Columbia (17 percent) combine to give federal employment an outsize effect on the coast’s economic picture.
“It’s definitely substantial,” Barrick told YachatsNews. “If you take all the high earners out, that has a big impact on a region. All the services and products those employees are buying would certainly have an effect.”
The actual number of federal layoffs both on the coast and across Oregon and the rest of the nation is far from clear at this point. But the firings and resignations of thousands of federal workers, along with lawsuits seeking the block some terminations, are taking place on a near-daily basis.
Lincoln County
About 2 percent of Lincoln County’s total workforce is comprised of federal workers, according to Oregon Employment Department figures. That is quite a bit higher than surrounding counties, due mainly to Newport being the West Coast headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific fleet, where layoff notices went out last week.
Technically, NOAA is classified under the federal Department of Commerce, which is why the agency is not a line item in the overall list of federal government employment in Oregon, Barrick said.
Of Lincoln County’s reported 313 federal employees, 111 work for the Department of Agriculture, with the Department of Commerce a close second at 110. The remainder of the federal workforce in the county looks like this: The U.S. Postal Service (62), the Department of the Interior (19), the Environmental Protection Agency (9), and the General Services Administration (1).
A total of 172 workers, or about 1.25 percent of Clatsop County’s total workforce, is employed by the federal government. The breakdown, by agency, is the Postal Service (59), the Department of Defense (50), the Interior Department (16), Homeland Security (15), Department of Veterans Affairs (10), the Social Security Administration and Commerce Department (both 9), and the Coast Guard Exchange System (5).
Tillamook County’s 113 federal employees are spread among the Postal Service (53), Agriculture (36) and Interior (24).
Columbia County’s 78 federal workers are employed by the Postal Service (74) and Agriculture Department (4).
Across the state
While the total of 28,570 federal jobs at the beginning of 2024 accounted for about 1.5 percent of all employment, according to a state report, the share was considerably higher in many rural areas of Oregon.
In the first quarter of 2024, for instance, the top 10 counties by share of all jobs in federal government were rural areas, the report found. The highest percentages were in Sherman (14 percent), Grant (9 percent) and Lake (7 percent) counties.
As on the Oregon coast, federal government jobs also tend to pay relatively high wages. Annual average wages on federal government payrolls in Oregon in 2023 paid $92,700. That was fully 36 percent higher than the average annual wage of $68,300 for all jobs in the state.
“A larger share of federal government jobs tend to require education beyond high school, which tends to be correlated with higher wages,” the report said. “In addition, some sectors that generally have lower average wages, such as leisure and hospitality and retail trade, also generally have little to no government employment. Both of these factors are among the contributors to higher average wage in federal government jobs.”
The exact timing of any further job losses, along with even when they will start showing up in unemployment reports, remains unclear
“The January employment estimates are unlikely to show any of the job changes due to executive orders or other workforce reductions, due to timing of the personnel changes in late January or February,” the report said. “Monthly employment and unemployment estimates for Oregon in February are due out on March 26.”
Sheer numbers aside, however, Barrick noted that any real and lasting impacts of federal job losses on the Oregon coast and elsewhere remain difficult to assess.
“There is so much uncertainty right now,” he said. “Will the NOAA layoffs stick? Who knows? It’s tough to pin down exactly what to expect. We just don’t know.”
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