About Oregon Business Insider, OBI’s Free Newsletter
Oregon Business Insider, a free monthly newsletter created by Oregon Business & Industry (OBI), appears on the first Wednesday of every month.
Oregon Business Insider is intended for anyone who’s interested in Oregon’s business environment. You do not need to be an OBI member to receive Oregon Business Insider.
Feel free to share this newsletter with people in your networks, who can subscribe by following the link above.
The Month that Was: Three Things that Happened in July
CNBC rankings: On July 9, CNBC released its annual America’s Top States for Business rankings, which saw Oregon slip to 42nd, the state’s lowest ranking in the 20-year history of the index. Oregon has dropped 25 places since 2017, when it was ranked 17th. In addition to assigning an overall ranking, CNBC ranks each state in 10 categories. Oregon’s best rankings were in infrastructure (17th) and technology and innovation (18th). Its worst rankings were in cost of doing business (43rd), business friendliness (43rd) and cost of living (45th). Gov. Kotek’s Oregon’s Prosperity Roadmap targets improvement in multiple CNBC rankings. Go here to read OBI’s response to this year’s rankings.
Quarterly job-posting report: On July 17, OBI released the Oregon Jobs Report covering the second quarter of 2026. The report, which reflects state job postings from April to June, is produced by Colorado-based Aspen Tech Labs, which maintains a database of more than 10 million active job postings worldwide from over 350,000 employers. The quarterly report shows, among other things, a year-over-year decline of 0.5% in state job postings compared to a 3.7% gain nationally. One bright spot is the Hermiston-Pendleton region, which has become one of the state’s fastest-growing hiring markets thanks to Amazon’s data center buildout. Read more here.
Oregon semiconductor report: This report was released in June, but we didn’t dig into it until July. So we’ll claim it. Prepared for Business Oregon and Oregon State University by the University of Oregon, “A Strategic Assessment of Oregon’s Semiconductor Ecosystem” issues a warning that will be familiar to people who have read a 2025 report prepared for the agency by the University of Oregon. Like last year’s report, which examines the recruitment of Oregon businesses by other states, the semiconductor report highlights the fact that businesses with footprints in Oregon often choose to invest and expand elsewhere. As a result, other states enjoy the jobs and innovation that investment produces. Encouraging investment in Oregon will require policymakers to increase Oregon’s competitiveness. Read the full report here and a good blog post by Business Oregon economist Damon Runberg here.
The Month Ahead: Three Things to Watch in August
Occupational licensing index: At some point in August, the Archbridge Institute will release its annual State Occupational Licensing Index. The Washington, D.C., based nonprofit is a public policy think tank “dedicated to lifting barriers to human flourishing.” Among other things, Archbridge researches state-level regulations that affect American workers. These include childcare regulations (Oregon ranks 39th in Archbridge’s 2026 State Childcare Regulations Index) and, of course professional licensing regulations. In 2025, Oregon topped Archbridge’s licensing index, meaning the state has the nation’s highest occupational licensing burden. This is one of the many rankings and data points OBI tracks on the Oregon Scorecard.
Quarterly revenue forecast: On Aug. 26, the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis will release the Oregon Economic and Revenue Forecast for the third quarter of 2026. The forecast provides information used by planners and policymakers to set and adjust budgets. The forecast for the second quarter, released May 21, projected that net general fund revenue for the 2025-27 biennium would exceed the amount forecast at the end of the 2025 legislative session by $139 million. The forecast also predicted a substantial biennial ending fund balance of roughly $345 million. Read the full Q2 forecast here.
Trail Blazers vote: On Aug. 12, Portland City Council is scheduled to vote on a term sheet to guide negotiations with the Portland Trail Blazers over a long-term lease of the city-owned Moda Center, an aging facility that requires hundreds of millions of dollars in basic maintenance. The city sent the Blazers a first-draft term sheet in mid-July. Earlier this year, the Legislature agreed to invest $365 million for facility renovations by capturing income taxes paid by the Trail Blazers, other employers in Portland’s Rose Quarter and construction firms doing work on Moda Center renovations. Portland is expected to contribute $120 million and Multnomah County $100 million. The Trail Blazers generate substantial economic activity in Portland and are the anchor tenant of the Moda Center, which is also used by the WNBA’s Portland Fire. For more background, read this July 27 story by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Monthly Year-Over-Year Employment Snapshot
What happened: On July 21, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released year-over-year employment data for all 50 states. During the period covered, June 2025 to June 2026, Oregon remained among the weakest performing states with employment shrinking by 0.9%. Only Montana saw a steeper decline, losing 1%, while Virginia tied Oregon at -0.9%. Unlike Oregon, however, Virginia has been affected disproportionately by the loss of federal jobs in recent months. Overall, Oregon lost roughly 18,500 jobs between June 2025 and June 2026.
Industry sectors: Oregon lost jobs in almost every high-level industry sector tracked by the BLS (go here for definitions). The state’s percentage losses were among the nation’s 10 steepest in five sectors (see chart above). Losses were particularly steep in manufacturing, with only Nebraska losing a greater percentage of jobs; and professional & business services, with only two states losing a greater percentage. In no sectors was Oregon among the 10 strongest performing states.
Why it matters: The value of jobs is self-evident. Additionally, creating living wage jobs is one of the three strategic goals outlined by Gov. Kotek’s Prosperity Roadmap, released in late 2025. To that end, the roadmap claims, “Oregon will foster the conditions necessary to generate meaningful employment across all communities – urban, rural, and underserved.”
Statistic of the Month: Business Establishment Creation
Business creation metric weakens: On July 29, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released quarterly data showing establishment births and deaths. The June edition of Oregon Business Insider discussed Oregon’s recent performance and promised to revisit the matter when complete establishment birth data for 2025 became available. That has happened, and here we are.
Establishment births and deaths explained: In simple terms, establishment birth and death data track business creation and expansion. According to the BLS, an establishment is an “economic unit that produces goods or services, usually at a single physical location.” In other words, it’s a business location that has employees. It can be a single business or one of multiple locations operated by a business. A birth refers to an establishment that is reporting employees for the first time, and a death is an establishment that has reported no employees for four consecutive quarters. That confirmation period causes death data to lag birth data by several months. For that reason, the most recent establishment death data available covers the first quarter of 2025.
Oregon’s latest numbers: Oregon’s establishment birth rate in 2025 is one of the nation’s lowest, tied with Indiana at 47th. The rate, 2.6%, is well below the national average rate, 3.43%. Oregon’s birth-rate ranking fell 19 places between 2024 and 2025 (see above chart). For the first quarter of 2025, Oregon’s rate of establishment deaths, at 4%, is tied for the nation’s 11th highest and above the national average of 3.7%.
Why does this matter? If you’d like to dig deeper, check out this 1998 paper by a BLS economist or this 2008 article by a different BLS economist. Meanwhile, an economist with the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, an advocacy organization, shared a plain-English explanation of the importance of births and deaths in May: “Business establishment deaths are a fact of life in a dynamic economy, but they become a more considerable economic concern when deaths outdistance births, and when such deaths can be linked to some degree to burdensome governmental costs, such as taxes and regulations.”
Deaths outnumber births: Oregon’s struggles are reflected not only in the relative rates of establishment births and deaths but also in the numbers of births compared with the number of deaths. Establishment births outnumbered establishment deaths in Oregon every year from 2011 to 2024 (see chart here), but deaths have outnumbered births since.
Oregon Business Matters Talks with EDCO CEO Jon Stark
Oregon Business Matters is OBI’s biweekly podcast. It features interviews with state business and political leaders, economists, academics, pollsters – all with a focus on issues that matter to Oregon’s businesses.
This month’s spotlight episode is our interview with Jon Stark, CEO of Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO for short). Founded in 1981, EDCO is a nonprofit organization committed to business retention and recruitment in Crook, Jefferson and Deschutes counties. It focuses deliberately – and successfully – on traded-sector businesses in a handful of clusters, including advanced manufacturing and high tech. Listen to our conversation with Jon here.
In case you missed them, check out our recent interviews with Portland General Electric President and CEO Maria Pope, Hayden Homes Vice President of Community Engagement and Community Giving Deborah Flagan and many others on the Oregon Business Matters website.
You can also subscribe to the Oregon Business Matters podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
Opportunities to Engage
If you would like timely opportunities to engage in the political process, please consider signing up with the Oregon Prosperity Initiative. Participation will allow you to send comment letters to key legislators and policymakers in support of policies that would improve Oregon’s economic competitiveness – and in opposition to policies that would erode it. It’s an easy way to help improve Oregon’s business climate.
About Oregon Business & Industry
OBI is Oregon’s statewide chamber of commerce and also Oregon’s affiliate for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation. OBI works tirelessly as the voice of business in Salem, pursuing policies necessary to support a prosperous private sector.
OBI members enjoy many benefits, including opportunities to participate in OBI’s policy-setting committees, participation in OBI events, regular communications about key public policy developments, and access to cost-saving programs, including:
HealthChoice: Helps businesses with fewer than 100 employees offer comprehensive health-care benefits through our partnership with Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon.
Partners Retirement Plan: Allows multiple employers to offer a 401(k) benefit to employees through a group structure while maintaining individual company design and control over the benefit – such as eligibility, employer match, and vesting.
CompSAFE: Helps eligible companies enjoy workers’ compensation discounts through SAIF Corporation.
Fuel Program: Helps members save fuel costs through our partnership with Ed Staub & Sons.
LegalPLUS: OBI members receive 15 minutes of free legal consulting per month from Innova Legal Advisors.
Go here to learn more about OBI, here to learn more about OBI’s member benefits and here to talk with OBI about becoming a member.