Nearly three months into Oregon’s coronavirus outbreak, the state’s weekly jobs numbers show that far fewer workers are losing their jobs and tens of thousands of laid-off Oregonians are being called back to work.

The improved numbers come as Oregon gradually reopens from its March shutdown and suggest the worst of the steep economic downturn is probably over. But state economists have warned that full recovery from Oregon’s steepest downturn since the Great Recession will take years, and are cautious about the latest numbers.

“It really is too soon to say,” said Anna Johnson, economist with the employment department.

While the number of new jobless claims fell to 8,500 workers last week – down from nearly 90,000 new claims one week in late March – Johnson notes that new claims are still coming in at twice Oregon’s average rate from before the pandemic.

Oregon recorded 36,000 fewer continued unemployment claims in the last week of May, a 12% drop from the prior week.

The 267,000 continued claims (from workers who were already unemployed, filing for continued benefits) at the end of May was smaller than any single week since mid-April, suggesting thousands of Oregonians are going back to work. But the total was still 10 times higher than before the pandemic.

“While there was a drop last week in continued claims, the total number of continued claims is still really high,” Johnson said, “and continues to be higher than the peak reached during the Great Recession.”

Oregon’s unemployment rate was 14.2% in April, the highest point on record. May’s numbers come out Tuesday. Nearly 490,000 Oregonians have filed for jobless benefits since the start of the crisis in March, more than a fifth of the state’s workforce.

Nearly two-thirds of Oregonians rate the state’s economy as poor or very poor, according to a poll released Thursday by DHM research. That’s up from 55% in March.

But Oregonians say they’re less worried about their own circumstances. In March, at the beginning of the outbreak, 63% said they were somewhat or very worried. In this month’s poll that number was 49%.

The recent drop in new jobless claims has helped Oregon begin to catch up with its enormous backlog of benefits applications. The number of Oregonians waiting on benefits spiked above 100,000 last month, with many waiting for well over a month.

Now, the backlog is down to roughly 13,000 regular claims – plus thousands more self-employed workers who are newly eligible for unemployment benefits. The state has been unable to say how many of those workers are still waiting.

Gov. Kate Brown fired the director of the Oregon Employment Department at the end of May as the department struggled to process claims and communicate with workers who are awaiting benefits.

New director David Gerstenfeld said Thursday that the department now has staffers from other state agencies and members of the Oregon Army National Guard calling benefits applicants to guide them on working through the benefits process.

The department is now working with Google, too, on technology to improve the claims process for self-employed workers. And the department has set up a liaison to the state Legislature to assist lawmakers in resolving constituent claims.

Through the heart of the department’s crisis, in April and May, Gerstenfeld’s predecessor refused to speak publicly about her agency’s struggles or say what she was doing to address tens of thousands of unpaid claims. Gerstenfeld has held regular media briefings since he took over at the end of last month.

The department’s phone lines are still jammed, though, and that’s its main way of communicating with jobless Oregonians to resolve problems with their claims. The communications crisis, and the department’s obsolete computer system, continues to prevent thousands of workers from getting their benefits.

“We know Oregonians are still waiting and they continue to feel frustrated,” Gerstenfeld said on a media call Wednesday. “We are doing everything in our power to do right by them.”

This article was originally published by The Oregonian/OregonLive, one of more than a dozen news organizations throughout the state sharing their coverage of the novel coronavirus outbreak to help inform Oregonians about this evolving heath issue.