Oregon Wages and Hours in Third Quarter 2025: Most Industries Saw Real Wage Growth
June 26, 2026Every quarter Oregon employers are required to file unemployment insurance tax reports which list every job covered by unemployment insurance, the wages paid, and the hours worked. These quarterly records cover more than two million individuals employed in the state but exclude self-employed workers and federal government workers. The data allow us to calculate hourly wages for each job by industry and firm size. These statistics are not directly comparable to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and Current Employment Statistics (CES) data.
Oregon had 2.04 million workers covered by the state’s unemployment insurance system during the third quarter of 2025. This was a decrease of 4,000, or -0.2%, from the same quarter of the previous year. They earned a total of $34.9 billion, with an average wage of $17,142 per worker for the quarter. The median hourly wage during the quarter was $28.53.
Wage Growth in Most Industries
Oregon employers reported over 2.2 million jobs during the third quarter of 2025. (Individuals with multiple jobs are counted for each job they hold.) The median wage increased by $0.26 over the year, after being adjusted for inflation according to the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). Across the major industry groups, most industries experienced real wage growth, meaning that the median wage increased more than inflation.
State government had the largest real gain in median wage from third quarter 2024 to third quarter 2025 (+$2.65; +5.3%), followed by information (+$2.47; +5.0%). While most industries kept pace with inflation, leisure and hospitality and transportation, warehousing, and utilities recorded declines in real median wages compared with the same quarter a year ago.
Third Quarter 2024 to Third Quarter 2025
| Over the Year | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Wage 3Q2025 | Real Gain ($) | Real Gain (%) | |
| All Industries | $28.53 | $0.26 | 0.9% |
| State Government | $52.74 | $2.65 | 5.3% |
| Information | $51.93 | $2.47 | 5.0% |
| Natural Resources and Mining | $21.50 | $0.63 | 3.0% |
| Local Government | $40.39 | $1.08 | 2.7% |
| Construction | $37.50 | $0.76 | 2.1% |
| Wholesale Trade | $33.75 | $0.65 | 2.0% |
| Private Educational Services | $28.38 | $0.34 | 1.2% |
| Financial Activities | $34.59 | $0.38 | 1.1% |
| Retail Trade | $20.97 | $0.21 | 1.0% |
| Health Care & Social Assistance | $28.34 | $0.18 | 0.6% |
| Other Services | $25.80 | $0.07 | 0.3% |
| Manufacturing | $32.16 | $0.08 | 0.3% |
| Professional and Business Services | $31.36 | $0.03 | 0.1% |
| Leisure and Hospitality | $20.43 | $-0.15 | -0.7% |
| Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities | $28.14 | $-0.84 | -2.9% |
Workers with Two or More Jobs and Median Wage
There were five industries where at least 10% of workers had two or more jobs in the third quarter of 2025: natural resources and mining, leisure and hospitality, health care and social assistance, private educational services, and other services.
Adding median wage to this analysis provides an interesting point of discussion. There appears to be an inverse correlation between an industry’s share of workers with two or more jobs and its median wage. In other words, as the share of workers with two or more jobs in an industry decreases, median wage increases. The top five industries with the greatest shares of workers with two or more jobs also had median wages below the median hourly wage for all industries ($28.53). Additionally, state government had the highest median wage in third quarter 2025 and also had the lowest share of workers with two or more jobs (5.7%).
However, it’s really important to remember that correlation does not mean there is causation. There are likely a multitude of factors that affect this correlation, including but not limited to demographics, industry-occupation mixes, and much more. This data is also grouped by a worker’s primary job, which in this analysis is defined as the job with the greatest total wages paid during the quarter.
Non-classifiable jobs (jobs at employers that have not yet been assigned an industry code) were excluded from much of this analysis.
Past reports are available in the Oregon Wages and Hours drop-down menu at www.qualityinfo.org/data.