The percentage of wages private and public employers in Morrow and Umatilla counties paid in 2022 outpaced the state’s growth, states an Oregon Employment Department report.
According to the OED, the overall wage growth for Morrow County was 13.6%, while Umatilla’s was 8.6%. Both figures were higher than the state’s 7.3% in 2022.
“Growth in payroll, which is obviously the wages employers pay to employees, in Morrow and Umatilla counties grew faster than it did in Oregon,” said the report’s author, OED regional economist Dallas W. Fridley. “This is a way of showing how well the counties compared to Oregon in terms of economic growth. Certainly from a payroll standpoint Morrow County is definitely growing faster than Oregon.”
Morrow County
According to the report, Morrow County’s wage growth in 2022 brought total wages to about $410.4 million.
“That was a pretty good growth rate,” Fridley said. “It was good enough to finish fourth out of 36 counties in Oregon.”
Private industry payrolls rose by $46.9 million, or 15.5%, to reach $350 million. Manufacturing led the private industry sector, adding $14 million in wages for a 13.7% growth to $116.3 million.
“So manufacturing represented about one-third of Morrow County’s private industry payroll total,” Fridley said. “So one in $3 in private industry came from the manufacturing industry. Obviously, manufacturing is an important industry in Morrow County.”
Construction also performed well, the report states, thanks to an ongoing renewable energy project that increased its payroll by $10.2 million, or 162.6%, to $16.5 million.
“That was a huge increase, actually, 162.6% percent. More than doubled, and from a job standpoint it added 86 jobs,” Fridley said.
The report found that the county did see some payroll losses in transportation, warehousing and utilities, as wages dropped by $7.2 million, or 27.8%, to $18.8 million.
“While I don’t have a definitive answer why that happened, I do know that PGE (Portland General Electric) did finally shut down one of its coal facilities in Morrow County in the last couple of years,” Fridley said. “I’m just saying they closed a facility, and I assume that’s where some of the loss comes from.”
On the public side, Morrow County governments’ payrolls rose to $60.4 million, an increase of $2.2 million, or 3.7%.
Fridley said that Morrow County has outpaced the state in payroll growth 11 times in the past 20 years.
“On a percentage basis, it’s way outgrown the state,” he said. “Morrow County’s payroll has grown by 314% in 20 years. That’s a huge amount. Whereas Oregon’s payroll has grown by 144% over the same period.”
He credited that growth to food products manufacturing and Amazon facilities.
Umatilla County
The OED states Umatilla County’s private and public payrolls grew by $127.6 million in 2022, rising to $1.612 billion overall. This helped the county place 15th out of 36 counties.
Private industry increased by 9%, or $98.1 million, to reach $1.184 billion in wages. Education and health services led Umatilla County’s private industry payroll growth, rising to $221.2 million for an increase of $25.2 million, or 12.9%.
“Education and health services were at the top of the private industry growth list,” Fridley said. “Another fast-growing industry, or (it) at least had a good year in 2022, is natural resources/mining, which is primarily agriculture. It rose by $14 million, or 10.6%.”
Leisure and hospitality pay rose by 19.5%, or $10.1 million, for a total of $61.8 million, according to the report.
Public payrolls rose by 7.4%, or $29.6 million, to $428.2 million total, according to the OED. Local governments led the way with $21 million, or 8.4%. They also represented about 63% of Umatilla County’s public sector pay, reaching $271.5 million in 2022.
Fridley said the county’s wage growth has outpaced the state’s seven times in the past 20 years.
“Umatilla County is up 100% in 20 years, and Oregon, again, up 144%,” he said. “So the state has outgrown the county in the past 20 years, but we did lose one pretty big project with the Umatilla depot and chemical weapons incineration about a decade ago. So that was a pretty big loss in payroll.”
Information industry
Fridley said Amazon payrolls were included in the report, but because of confidentiality issues, he did not segregate the information industry into its own category, such as manufacturing or construction.
“We do have a fairly large information industry because Amazon has its server facilities there in Morrow County, and it has some in Umatilla,” he said. “But the problem with that is they are the only major employer in that industry, so for that reason we are unable to publish payroll information for (the) information (industry).
“The only reason I point that out is because they are an important employer,” he added. “Data centers tend to have high average wages, so while they are included in the mix when I talk about all ownerships and private coverage and things like that, I can’t break out the industry itself to tell you what happened with information.”
According to an Amazon Web Services report, AWS operations employ more than 5,000 workers in Morrow and Umatilla counties, making up approximately 18% of total employment across the two counties.
“From 2012 to 2021, AWS invested more than $15.6 billion in capital investment in eastern Oregon,” the AWS report states. “This investment has helped support thousands of local jobs in Oregon’s Morrow and Umatilla counties as well as fund programs that are a path to new careers in tech.”
Fridley added that Oregon’s average annual wage in 2022 was $66,342. Morrow County was just under that at $64,067, while Umatilla County averaged $50,758.
Across Oregon, 13 counties fell short of the state’s 7.3% payroll gain, and 23 exceeded that benchmark, the report states.
