Lawmakers have extended a ban on residential foreclosures during the coronavirus pandemic.

Population growth in Clatsop County has slowed with the economy.

The county reached 39,330 people as of July 1, according to figures from Portland State University’s Population Research Center, up one-third of a percent from last year and 6.1% from a decade ago.

The state grew by about 1%, or 41,000 people, from last year, and nearly 400,000 people over the past decade, a growth rate of more than 10%. Migration of people into the state has accounted for the vast majority of growth.

Charles Rynerson, interim director of the Population Research Center, tied the slowing growth rate to a dampening economy and expensive housing market.

“Obviously, the economy is doing well,” he said. “But in terms of the number of jobs being added in Oregon, it’s down from a few years ago.”

Clatsop County’s growth rate was at 0.2% in July 2011, when unemployment peaked around 10%. The county’s growth rate grew with the number of jobs, peaking at nearly 1.6% between 2016 and 2017, when unemployment bottomed out around 4%. Unemployment has since leveled out around 4%, while the growth rate has dipped below 1% annually.

Much of the job growth on the North Coast has been in lower-paying, less-skilled jobs in the service sector and hospitality. Housing, meanwhile, has become more expensive, driven in large part by people from outside the county with more money to spend.

“If some of the job growth at the coast is in, say, the tourist economy, but people with second homes are driving up the cost of housing, then there’s a mismatch,” Rynerson said. “It’s a problem not only at the coast, but all over the state.”

More than half of the state’s population growth was in the Portland metro area in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. Deschutes County, home to the quickly growing city of Bend, was the fastest-growing county in the state over the past decade, increasing in population by 22%.

Coastal counties nearer to Portland have faired better economically and grown at a faster pace than their neighbors to the south. Clatsop County’s 6.1% growth rate was the fastest on the Oregon Coast over the past decade, compared to 4.9% in Tillamook County and 4.6% in Lincoln County. Coos and Curry counties grew by 0.4% and 2.9% over the past decade.

Astoria, at 9,690 people, continued slowly shrinking, down five people from the year prior and 80 from its peak of 9,770 in 2016. The city, bound by water and steep hills, has hovered just below 10,000 people since the 1990 census.

Warrenton, the fastest-growing city in Clatsop County, reached 5,320 as of July 1, up 6.4% from 2010. Seaside and Cannon Beach each grew around 2% over the past decade, to 6,585 and 1,730. Gearhart grew more than 4% over the past decade to 1,525.

Unincorporated areas of Clatsop County, with cheaper building costs, grew by 11.6% over the past decade.

Rynerson expects to put out one more population estimate in December 2020 before results from the census come out in March 2021. The census will provide better data on the seasonality of the Oregon Coast, he said.

“The coast doesn’t have the job base that the metropolitan areas have,” he said. “It’s sort of difficult to sort out because of so much seasonal housing. The seasonal economies, we’re looking forward to getting new data when the 2020 census comes out in 2021, to get a handle of how many housing units are occupied year-round.”