PORTLAND — Oregon manufacturing’s pandemic recovery may be over, with factories shedding thousands of jobs since last summer.

The declines stand out because other parts of Oregon’s economy are continuing their recovery, adding workers, and because the state’s jobless rate is near a historic low at 3.5%.

Manufacturing recoveries tend to be incomplete, reflecting a long-term decline in factory work in Oregon and across the country.

“Every time we go through a recession, manufacturing doesn’t get back to where it was before,” said Gail Krumenauer, economist with the Oregon Employment Department.

That protracted deterioration of blue-collar jobs reflects offshored production work, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s; increased automation on the factory floor; and the closure of aging factories that are too expensive to replace.

Oregon manufacturing has held up better than in other parts of the country, but in the pandemic’s wake, Oregon factories appear to be faring a little worse.

Nationally, manufacturing employment is up about 1% in the past year. It’s down a little more than 2%, about 4,100 jobs, in Oregon.

The cuts come across a variety of industries. Intel laid off an unspecified number of Oregon workers beginning last fall. Toilet paper factories in Scappoose and St. Helens are closing. Marquis Hot Tubs is laying off 115 in Independence. And just last week, the Tree Top fruit processing plant in Medford announced it will shut down and lay off 74.

There’s no simple answer for why factory work has been cooling off in Oregon, according to Krumenauer: “We’re seeing different trends happen in different types of manufacturing.”

For example, Oregon food manufacturing employment is up robustly over the past year, adding 900 workers. But machinery, paper manufacturing, wood products, and computer and electronics have all shed jobs.

Metals and machinery jobs, which each fell about 20% in the first months of the pandemic, have been roughly flat over the past year.

“The mix of things that’s going on for different employers and different industries has been changing, just as it is overall for the economy,” Krumenauer said.

And in Oregon manufacturing right now, the losers outnumber the winners.

But while some segments are shedding jobs, Krumenauer said factories are still snapping up workers when they can find them, underscoring the state’s enduring labor shortage. She said Oregon manufacturers had 7,100 open jobs at any given time last spring.

“There’s still hiring going on there,” Krumenauer said, “and there’s still a demand there for workers.”