Lane County Job Vacancies Rebound in 2021
March 3, 2022 Private employers in Lane County were looking to fill a record 8,900 job vacancies at any given time in 2021 according to estimates from the Oregon Employment Department’s Job Vacancy Survey. The record level of vacancies came as employers tried to replace jobs lost during the pandemic recession in 2020 when vacancies dropped 23%. In another record, employers reported 74% of vacancies were difficult to fill.
The average starting wage offered by employers in Lane County was $18.62 compared with $19.69 statewide.
Even though the average wage was lower than the statewide average, Lane County had roughly the same percentages of vacancies by educational requirement. Of the vacancies where an educational requirement is known, only 29% required education beyond high school while 71% of jobs required a high school diploma or less and a little less than half of those had no requirement at all.


Even with demand concentrated in the health care and social services industry, businesses were hiring for a wide variety of occupations in 2021, reporting vacancies in 181 different occupations. Heavy and tractor-trailer drivers had the highest number at 556 with vacancies coming from several industries including transportation, construction, and wholesale trade.
The health care and social services industry had vacancies in several occupations including the second highest, personal care aides with 545. Others include registered nurses (148), social and human services assistants (140), and preschool teachers (132).
Other occupations with a high number of vacancies include retail salespersons (294), customer service representatives (241), cooks (215), landscaping and groundskeeping workers (203), and construction laborers (200).

For more details on statewide and regional vacancies, visit https://www.qualityinfo.org/pubs and scroll down to the section titled “Job Vacancy Survey.”