New employers in Oregon will pay a higher unemployment insurance rate in 2024, according to the state Employment Department.
Employers pay into the state’s unemployment trust fund through a payroll tax. The rate is variable for established businesses, and the state sets the rate for new employers each November based on the previous year’s demand on the fund. The trust is used to pay weekly benefits to Oregonians who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
“The unemployment insurance payroll tax for new employers will increase slightly in 2024 from the current rate of 2.1% on taxable wages up to $50,900 per employee,” said David Gerstenfeld, director of the Oregon Employment Department, “to a rate of 2.4% in 2024 on wages up to $52,800.”
A person’s weekly benefits are based on their previous wages. Across the state – and across industries – wages have increased over the past two years, pushing up the amount of weekly benefits claimed.
“The higher wages in 2022 led to higher average weekly unemployment insurance payouts in 2023,” Gerstenfeld said, which was the main reason for the increase in the payroll tax rate.
Overall, Oregon’s unemployment rate remains low at 3.6% in October, up from 3.5% in September. In recent years, Oregon has either had more job openings than unemployed people, or those numbers have been about the same recently, said state employment economist Gail Krumenauer.
“We’re at that one-to-one ratio in Oregon right now,” she said. “That means it’s still a tight labour market, where it’s hard for employers to find enough workers to fill all the job openings that are out there.”
