Central Oregon counties saw further improvement in unemployment rates in February, continuing a strong recovery trend. Regional Economist Damon Runberg says the tri-county area is nearly fully recovered from Pandemic-era job losses and it happened faster than he expected. He says in the case of Deschutes County, losing 18% of total nonfarm employment in two months equates to roughly, almost 1 in 5 jobs disappearing overnight. He said sitting with 1300 more jobs than when the pandemic hit, is a remarkable feat. Deschutes County added 370 jobs, last month with unemployment now at 3.8-percent. That’s just a half a percent above the record low set before the pandemic began. Crook County’s jobless rate fell to 5.2-percent in February Jefferson County also improved, dropping to 4.8-percent.