PORTLAND — A sense of optimism tinged with concern for those left behind in the post-recession economy permeated Greater Portland Inc.’s 7th Annual Economic Summit held Tuesday morning at the Portland Art Museum, an event that attracted a full house of regional business and political leaders, including many from Clark County.
Local and national economic development experts praised the region as a place that offers a skilled workforce, abundant water and low energy costs, relatively inexpensive land, and a quality of life that encompasses marriage equality and “bacon on maple bars,” in the words of Alisa Pyszka, a Greater Portland Inc. vice president who was formerly Vancouver’s economic development director.
But the Portland region and the nation face the daunting challenges of a 4 percent post-recession decline in median incomes despite productivity increases; a shortage of 5.6 million jobs needed to return to pre-recession employment, adjusted for population growth; and a 23 percent unemployment rate among workers ages 16 to 19.
Those numbers were part of a presentation by Amy Liu, co-director of the Brooking Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. Liu is working on a program called the Global Cities Initiative, co-sponsored by JPMorgan Chase, to help leaders in some 100 U.S. metropolitan regions focus their economies on world markets.
In her information-packed presentation, Liu downplayed the importance of competing for business relocations, saying that only 2 percent of new jobs come from such moves, which often require heavy subsidies. Instead of such recruitments, she said, “we need to visibly reward expansion and jobs” from established businesses.
The Portland region, as the nation’s 20th-largest metropolitan economy, is in strong position to grow its international trade due to its proximity to Asian markets, skilled workforce, and other attributes. But competition is stiff, she said: Portland is the 111th-largest region out of 300 regional economies. “Portland has a lot of good habits. It just needs more of them,” she said.
The summit featured a heavy Clark County and Washington presence. Betsy Henning, founder and CEO of the AHA! strategic marketing and communications agency, and a Greater Portland Inc. board member, delivered opening comments. WSU Vancouver’s digital media program produced a video about eBay’s Portland expansion to a 400-employee workforce. And Gary Locke, the former Washington governor and U.S. ambassador to China, gave a keynote address.
The summit was the first for Janet LeBar, hired in June as the economic development partnership’s president and CEO. She replaced Sean Robbins, who now leads the state of Oregon’s economic development agency, Business Oregon.
