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Oregon employment dropped in February and construction jobs followed suit.

While the state’s unemployment level remained unchanged from January at 8.8 percent, preliminary estimates show the state’s nonfarm payroll fell by 6,400 jobs last month, of which the construction industry lost 2,000, according to today’s report from the Oregon Employment Department.

David Cooke, economist for the department, said the numbers are disappointing given last month’s national employment report, which added a whopping 227,000 jobs across the country. Cooke said Oregon’s revised employment level of approximately 1.62 million is about 10,000 jobs lower than his expectations.

For the construction industry, he said the housing crisis is still characterizing the situation in Oregon.

鈥淭here is a tremendous number of homes that ended up in the foreclosure process over the last couple years and that’s going to take another year or two to play out, at least,鈥� he said.

Cooke said the number of single-family and multifamily homes being built is still only a third of what it was during the boom years in ’06 and ’07. Home construction levels are also lower than at any other time in the past 50 years.

While residential building construction traditionally accounts for approximately 10,000 jobs, that number surged to nearly 16,000 in 2007. February saw just 8,100 of these jobs, which is about 500 below the previous two years at the same time.

Nonresidential construction was up 400 jobs to 7,000 in February, but was 2,000 below 2006 through 2008 levels. The trade, transportation and utilities industry and professional and business services industry also saw significant losses in February, losing 2,000 and 1,500 jobs respectively.

And while Cook said housing construction has historically led most recoveries since World War II, the housing bubble coupled with the glut of foreclosed homes has left the construction industry relatively stagnant during the past three years of the official recovery.

鈥淚t’s a really unprecedented new home construction bust, nationally,鈥� Cooke said. 鈥淚t’s a phenomenon that’s characterizing this business cycle.鈥�