More Than a Third of New Unemployment Claims Come From Oregon’s Hospitality and Leisure Industry

Restaurants, bars and hotels are getting creamed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hampton Inn, Portland. (Justin Katigbak)
By Nigel Jaquiss

The staggering job losses Oregonians are suffering as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic outstrip any other economic disaster in the state's recent history and are falling disproportionately on the hospitality and leisure industry: restaurants, bars, hotels and tourism-related businesses.

For the second week in a row, new jobless claims set a record.

"The Oregon Employment Department reported that they received 92,700 initial claims last week. That breaks the previous record of 76,500 set the week before," Josh Lehner, a state economist, wrote in a new analysis. "We also know these are just the tip of the iceberg of what's to come in the months ahead as the data catches up to the reality of what's happening."

Not all those claims have been processed by the Employment Department yet, but about 74,000 have. Lehner provided a breakdown of those claims by industry—36 percent come from the leisure and hospitality sector.

Here are the numbers for the first batch of claims:

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