A new Oregon Employment Department report on that state’s non-resident workforce notes that nearly 99,000 of its workers are residents of other states, with well over half of those workers flowing into the state from Clark County.
Oregon’s non-resident workforce in 2011 — the most recent year for which numbers are available — included 59,102 jobs in Oregon held by workers who lived in Clark County, according to Nick Beleiciks, the Oregon employment economist who was one of the report’s authors. Washington overall contributed 80,910 of Oregon’s out-of-state workers, with second-place Idaho sending just 6,501 workers to Oregon in 2011, according to the report released Monday.
The huge number of commuters from Clark County to Portland is “a reminder of how integrated the two economies are,” Beleiciks said.
Employment-wise, as any commuter can attest, it’s largely a one-way street: just 14,482 jobs in Clark County in 2011 were held by Oregon residents, the economist said.