Oregon Wages and Hours in Second Quarter 2025: Jobs with 350+ Hours Worked Dominated Most Industries

by Bingjie Kong

March 19, 2026

Every 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 2.02 million workers covered by the state’s unemployment insurance system during the second quarter of 2025. This was an increase of 11,600, or 0.6%, from the same quarter of the previous year. They earned a total of $34.8 billion, with an average wage of $17,257 per worker for the quarter. The median hourly wage during the quarter was $28.38.

Wage Growth in Most Industries

Oregon employers reported over 2.2 million jobs during the second quarter of 2025. (Individuals with multiple jobs are counted for each job they hold.) The median wage increased by $0.31 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 second quarter 2024 to second quarter 2025 (+$4.28; +9.0%), followed by local government (+$1.71; +4.4%). While most industries kept pace with inflation, other services and leisure and hospitality recorded declines in real median wages compared with the same quarter a year ago.

Real Change in Median Hourly Wage by Broad Industry Second Quarter 2024 to Second Quarter 2025
Skip table
    Over the Year
  2Q2025 Median Wage Real Gain ($) Real Gain (%)
All Industries $28.38 $0.31 1.1%
State Government $51.97 $4.28 9.0%
Local Government $40.70 $1.71 4.4%
Information $51.31 $1.56 3.1%
Wholesale Trade $32.95 $0.76 2.4%
Construction $36.57 $0.71 2.0%
Natural Resources and Mining $19.88 $0.25 1.3%
Health Care & Social Assistance $27.77 $0.31 1.1%
Private Educational Services $28.15 $0.28 1.0%
Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities $28.84 $0.26 0.9%
Financial Activities $33.84 $0.27 0.8%
Retail Trade $20.64 $0.15 0.7%
Manufacturing $31.55 $0.16 0.5%
Professional and Business Services $31.10 $0.08 0.3%
Leisure and Hospitality $20.19 -$0.03 -0.2%
Other Services $25.41 -$0.16 -0.6%
 


The Distribution of Jobs by Hours Worked

Jobs reported with at least 350 hours worked accounted for 61.4% of Oregon jobs during the second quarter of 2025. Approximately 14.4% fell into the 200 to 349 hours worked category, while 9.6% of jobs were in the 100 to 199 hours worked class. Jobs with fewer than 100 hours worked accounted for 14.6% of total jobs during the quarter. This distribution was similar to that observed one year ago in the second quarter of 2024.

Jobs with at least 350 hours worked made up the majority of positions in most industries during the second quarter of 2025. State government had the highest share of jobs with at least 350 hours worked (87.8%), followed by manufacturing and wholesale trade, both at 81.3%. However, within private educational services, natural resources and mining, and leisure and hospitality, more than half of jobs recorded fewer than 350 hours worked during the quarter. About one-third of jobs had fewer than 100 hours worked within natural resources and mining (31.3%). Similar shares were found in private educational services (29.4%) and leisure and hospitality (27.7%).

Leisure and hospitality had the highest share of jobs with 200 to 349 hours worked in the second quarter of 2025 (22.3%), followed by health care and social assistance (18.7%) and retail trade (18.5%). For most industries, the share of jobs with 100 to 199 hours worked ranged from 4.8% in manufacturing to 12.0% in natural resources and mining. Leisure and hospitality again stood out with a much higher share in the 100 to 199 hours worked category for the quarter (17.8%), while state government had the smallest share (2.4%).Graph showing Share of Jobs by Hours Worked Within Industries in Oregon, Second Quarter 2025Median wages followed a clear pattern across hours worked categories. For all private industries, jobs with 350 or more hours worked during the second quarter of 2025 had noticeably higher median hourly wages than those in the lower hours worked groups. Among jobs with fewer than 350 hours worked, median hourly wages were relatively similar across the 0 to 99, 100 to 199, and 200 to 349 hours worked categories.

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.


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