Oregon might finally regain its lost jobs

This has not been a particularly good economy for Oregon over the last handful of years, and the "Bush recovery" hasn't done much to fix things either. Nonetheless, after four years Oregon might finally regain its lost jobs. The Oregonian's Gail Kinsey Hill reports:

This year, Oregon will finally replace the jobs lost during a three-year downturn, according to economists who track the state's economy.

Between late 2000, when state employment peaked at 1.62 million, and mid-2003, when the job count hit a recession low, the state lost 65,400 jobs, a full 4 percent of the nonfarm work force. Last year, a slow climb out of the trough began, and by the second quarter of this year, employment should surpass the pre-recession high.

It's about time these jobs came back to the state. The next task will be creating sufficient jobs for all of the thousands of new Oregonians in the work force.