Eastern Oregon Has High Percentage of Small Businesses

by Tony Wendel

September 11, 2024

Eastern Oregon, comprising Baker, Grant, Harney, Malheur, Morrow, Umatilla, Union, and Wallowa counties, has a lot of small businesses. This is fairly typical of rural areas. There were about 5,780 private-sector firms within the Eastern Oregon area in the first quarter of 2024. Seven out of ten firms in the area have four employees or less (4,034 firms) and only 2.6% (152 firms) have 50 or more employees.
Graph 1 Graph showing About 92% of Eastern Oregon Private Firms Have Less Than 20 Employees

Despite the high percentage of small businesses within Eastern Oregon, about 59% of the area’s approximately 60,470 private jobs are in larger firms with 50 or more employees. About one quarter of jobs are in companies with 10 to 49 employees, while about 17% are in businesses with nine or fewer employees.
Graph showing About 59% of Eastern Oregon's Private Employment Comes from Larger Employers (50+ employees)

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