Posted inCoronavirus Jobs

List of Salem businesses that got PPP loans is mildly interesting

The title of this blog post won't go down in the annals of provocative headline writing, for sure. But it's accurate. I toyed with other titles, like "If you're too wired to sleep, read this" or "Here's something more interesting that watching paint dry... barely." Still, I hate to let a good PDF file go to waste, so here's a list someone sent me of the businesses in Salem that got PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) money from the federal government. The highlighted names of businesses in the list are ones that this person felt deserved attention. Download PPP Loans in…
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Posted inJobs Oregon politics

I hope the Clean Energy Jobs Bill makes me pay more at the pump

We Oregonians aren't paying enough for the gasoline that fuels our cars and trucks. Hopefully Oregon's Clean Energy Jobs Bill, also known as cap and trade, will pass in this legislative session and increase the state gasoline tax to a level that comes a heck of a lot closer to reflecting the long-term costs of the carbon pollution that is fueling global warming to increasingly dangerous levels. A recent story in the Portland Oregonian has some good news on this front: Almost three quarters of the revenues expected from the bill would come from increases in transportation fuel prices. The…
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Posted inJobs

Robots could replace many of Salem’s 1,000 Amazon warehouse jobs

Amazon is betting big on robots handling many, if not most, of the order fulfillment tasks now being carried out by humans in its giant packing and shipping warehouses.  So even though it's good news that Amazon is going to build a warehouse here in Salem that reportedly will employ a thousand full-time employees, this excerpt from an article in a recent issue of The New Yorker, "Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords," gives good reason for concern about how long those jobs will last. For low-skilled workers, warehouse jobs have seemed to be something of a bright spot. Even if…
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