SALEM – The Oregon monthly Jobs Report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that 33% (seasonally adjusted) of small business owners reported job openings they could not fill in December, unchanged from November. Unfilled job openings remain above the historical average of 24%.

“Small business owners are still struggling to fill their open positions, even more so than what’s historically normal. At the same time, 117,019 Oregonians are currently unemployed – a rate of 5.2%, which is worse than 47 other states, and much higher than the national average. This is incredibly frustrating data to make sense of,” said Anthony Smith, NFIB Oregon state director.