The Only Thing We Have To Fear...

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
Published in the Powell Butte View, April 2005

Answering the Question, 'Where Will All Those People Work?'

Between February 2000 and February 2005, 461,000 new jobs appeared in the United States, an increase of 3.4 percent. During the same five years, U.S. labor force grew by 4.1 percent, meaning that labor supply outstripped the ability of economy to create jobs by 0.7 percent.

Between February 2000 and February 2005, 17,551 new jobs appeared in Oregon, an increase of 1.0 percent. During the same five years, the Oregon labor force grew by 2.7 percent, meaning that labor supply outstripped the ability of the economy to create jobs by 1.6 percent.

Between February 2000 and February 2005, 10,286 new jobs appeared in the Bend Metropolitan Statistical area, an increase of 18.3 percent. During the same five years, the Bend labor force grew 17.8 percent, meaning that Bend’s employment base outperformed the ability of the Deschutes County labor supply to fill those jobs by half a percentage point.

Between February 2000, and February 2005, 1,076 new jobs appeared in Crook County, an increase of 15 percent. During the same five years, the number of Crook County residents seeking jobs grew 13.2 percent, meaning that Crook County employment outperformed the ability of the labor supply to fill those jobs by 1.8 percent.

By this measure, Crook County economic performance outshined the United States, Oregon and the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Deschutes County. Regrettably, you probably haven’t read that fact in any mainstream media outlet.

Even assuming that 20 percent of the new jobs found by Crook County residents were commuter jobs in adjacent counties, the ability of the Crook County economy to keep page with phenomenal growth is impressive. That’s even more true when one considers that during the same period seven of Oregon’s 36 counties—all in Eastern Oregon—actually saw their civilian labor forces and their job counts shrink as well.

These numbers help explain why the issue of unemployment is such a knotty problem. Even while employers add job and opportunities at a record pace, the unemployment rate will continue to rise as long as the population seeking those jobs is rising faster. A

At the present rate of growth, regional employers have to add about 210 jobs for Crook County residents a year to keep pace. They seem to have done that. In the five-year period between February 2000 and February 2005, Crook County population grew 1076. Crook County-based employment during the same period increased by 1055, a difference of 21. With the creation of a little more than four more jobs per year on average, we would have kept pace with rising population. With the creation of just 5 more jobs per year, we would have seen slight erosion in the unemployment rate. That’s pretty astonishing when you remember that the last five years have marked by recession. It’s even more amazing, considering that many people suggest that when the U.S. economy catches a cold, Oregon gets the flu. (Given the variability of our local employment picture, Crook County must catch pneumonia.)

When people talk about the double-digit growth which has come to Crook County, concern about jobs is always near the top of their list of feared outcomes. “Where will all those people work?” they wonder.’’ It’s a fair question. Thirty years ago you could have asked the same question about Bend or Redmond. Imagine what a resident of one of those communities might have asked in 1970 if he or she could have known that the population would increase from 30,442 to 129,492 in 2003. Who could have blamed a resident might who asked, “Where will all those people work?”

The way things played out in the county next door has lessons for us today. Sometimes we forget that it was just 1950 when the primary economy of Deschutes County was timber products, and the population was 21,812. Compare that to Crook County today—with its wood products-dependent economy and its population of 20,600.The two communities, while separated by 50 years in time, are virtually identical.

Starting in 1950 from the essentially the same point that we are today, the growth rate in Deschutes County by decade starting in 1960, was 6 percent, 32 percent, 104 percent, 21 percent and 122 percent. In Crook County, our comparable growth rates were 4 percent, 6 percent, 31 percent, 8 percent, and 37 percent. Deschutes County absorbed tremendous growth and went through tremendous change in the composition of its basic industries. Yet, it survived and even prospered, and its job creation is even today outperforming its growth in civilian labor force. The same economic forces which have been at work in Deschutes County for the past 50 years are alive in well in Crook County today. Considering that history, the question of “Where will all those people work?” seems a bit less frightening.

There are experts in the State who can project the population of Crook County for the next 50 years. Those same experts weren’t terribly accurate in projecting Deschutes County’s growth. I suspect their estimates of the forces that will drive Crook County population numbers in the next 50 years aren’t particularly reliable either.

What I do know is that Crook County seems to bucking the trends: the trends of shrinking population, shrinking job base and an increasingly dismal unemployment picture in Eastern Oregon. Whether by design or by accident, whether by our own efforts or the good fortune to be located next door to an economic powerhouse, our changing community and changing economy is poised for success.

I’m as concerned as anyone else about “Where will all those people work?” But I take comfort in the fact that, so far, we’re doing a remarkably job as a community of managing that problem, and if history of our neighbors to the west is any guide, the future will likely take care of itself.

Perhaps its true: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”