By NFIB, According to NFIB’s monthly jobs report, 42% (seasonally adjusted) of small business owners reported job openings they could not fill in the current period, a record reading. The March reading is 20 points higher than the 48-year historical average of 22%. “Where small businesses do have open positions, […]

COVID-19 Impacts on Oregon’s Breweries and Pubs By Oregon Employment Department Last year was difficult for many types of businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered the way we engage the economy. Breweries and brewpubs had been posting slower rates of growth before the onset of the pandemic, but the closure […]

By Vlad Yurlov Cascade Policy Institute Say your roof is leaking and you call a roofer for a quote. If they say “I’ll have to charge you the highest rate in the region” before saying hello, you’d probably just hang up. Oregon’s leaky roof is infrastructure spending. Instead of hanging […]

By Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, The framework for mitigating Covid risk in Oregon across a variety of industries has come with a certain level of experimentation by the Oregon Health Authority as they determine business restrictions during the ongoing health emergency. One of those experiments not followed by virtually […]

By Oregon Small Business Association, Mr. Rogers died in 2003, but his music live on—and even won a Grammy this year for a Portland company that reissued a compilation of his songs. Omnivore Recordings won the award in the Best Historical Album category for It’s Such a Good Feeling: The […]

National Federation of Independent Business, The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, released the following statement in response to President Joe Biden’s tax plans released today: “Any plan by President Biden and Congress must take into account the crucial role Main Street plays […]

By Oregon Business and Industry Frontline workers, as defined by the CDC, and Oregonians 16+ with underlying health conditions — both of which were scheduled to become eligible for the vaccine on April 19 — will now be eligible beginning April 5. This has raised several questions among OBI members, […]

By Oregon Employment Department, The total estimate of job vacancies at any given time in 2020 dropped 22% from the level in 2019, as the pandemic shuttered businesses and stalled hiring, especially in the spring at the onset of business restrictions. Still, employers were hiring for a wide variety of […]

By Oregon Small Business Association The U.S. Labor Department has ordered the owners of a Beaverton restaurant to pay more than $400,000 in back pay to its 39 employees. Buffet Palace paid a flat monthly wage to its employees, no matter how many hours they worked, resulting at times in […]

And So It Begins: First Known Lawsuit Over Vaccine Mandate Filed in New Mexico By Natalie Pattison By Barran Liebman LLP Oregon law firm, Employers considering vaccine mandates take note: one of the earliest known lawsuits challenging an employer-mandated vaccine policy has been filed in New Mexico. As we discussed […]