A8
OREGON
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 22, 2022
State has more open jobs than unemployed people
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SA LEM — Oregon
employers had a notoriously
diffi cult time fi lling jobs all
last year.
Burger fl ippers, chipmak-
ers, pipefi tters, nurses. They
were all in short supply.
New data out from the
state helps explain why.
Employers posted tens of
thousands of job openings
last year as the pandemic
recession faded. At the same
time, Oregon’s unemploy-
ment rate plunged.
That created an unprec-
edented mismatch: By fall,
the state had more job open-
ings than people looking for
work. It’s the fi rst time that’s
happened since at least 2013,
when Oregon began conduct-
ing its quarterly job vacancy
survey.
The most recent survey
from the Oregon Employ-
ment Department found the
state had about 103,000 job
openings in October. That’s
actually slightly fewer than
during the summer.
State on track for legal use
of therapeutic psilocybin
By LIZZY ACKER
The Oregonian
SALEM — The state still
has a lot of work to do, but
it won’t be too long before
Oregonians 21 and over
will be able to do something
almost no one else in the coun-
try can do — take psychedelic
mushrooms in a therapeutic
setting.
Oregon is the fi rst state in
the nation to vote to legalize
psilocybin, which research-
ers believe could help treat
depression, post-traumatic
stress disorder and addiction.
And with a year to go before
the implementation deadline,
the Oregon Health Authority
is working to develop a system
to administer the psychedelic
in therapeutic settings in the
state.
According to Measure 109,
approved by Oregon voters in
November of 2020, the state
has until Dec. 31, 2022, to set
up the framework that will
regulate legal magic mush-
rooms.
Offi cials say they are on
track to meet that deadline.
The development phase for
Measure 109 offi cially began
Jan. 1, 2021. In March, the
Oregon Psilocybin Services
Advisory Board, appointed by
Gov. Kate Brown, convened
for the fi rst time.
In June, OHA brought on
Angela Allbee to manage the
newly-created Oregon Psilo-
cybin Services Section.
Allbee’s team is creating a
training program, licensing,
and compliance tracking and
case management system,
establishing a product track-
ing system, said OHA spokes-
person Jonathan Modie, in
accordance with Measure 109,
as well as developing policy
and procedure for the license
and compliance programs.
While Allbee acknowl-
edges the state is creating
a program from scratch,
she said they aren’t without
guides.
“Indigenous communities
have practiced psilocybin use
for centuries,” she said, and
the substance is legal in diff er-
ent places around the world.
As it works to create rules,
Allbee said, the advisory
board has reviewed scien-
tifi c literature and invited a
number of guest speakers
with a wide array of informa-
tion and expertise. They have
held listening sessions and
currently have a survey open
on the section’s website.
“Our board is advisory,”
Allbee said, which means they
will submit recommendations
to OHA.
The state’s labor squeeze
didn’t ease up at all, though,
because unemployment was
falling even faster. Oregon’s
jobless rate dropped to just
4.4% in October, near a
historic low. It fell to 4.2%
in November.
Layoff s spiked when the
pandemic hit Oregon in the
spring of 2020. At that time,
when Oregon unemploy-
ment was at a record high,
there were nearly six people
on the jobless rolls for every
open job.
By the fall of 2021,
though, the situation had
reversed.
“There are now more
job openings than there are
unemployed people,” said
Gail Krumenauer, econo-
mist with the employment
department.
The state had just 7 unem-
ployed people for every
10 job openings. Oregon’s
experience mirrors what
happened nationally.
“There’s just simply not
enough available workers
for this record, or near-re-
cord, level of job openings,”
Krumenauer said. “This is
head and shoulders above
where we’ve been before.”
The turnaround is testa-
ment to the speed and scale
of the economic recovery.
But the worker shortage
created problems of its own.
Builders, factories, hotels,
pubs and restaurants all
struggled to meet customer
demand for the simple reason
they couldn’t find enough
workers. Hospitals, nurs-
ing homes and clinics have
struggled to fi nd staff , too.
Health care was the larg-
est category of job openings
last fall, according to the
employment department’s
survey, with about 28,000
vacancies. Construction,
retail, manufacturing and
hospitality jobs were next,
each with around 10,000
openings.
The worker shortage
produced a big spike in
wages. The state’s survey
said vacant jobs were off er-
ing an average hourly wage
of $21.22, up about 14% from
a year earlier — even after
adjusting for infl ation.
Sale and use of misbranded weed killer halted
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SALEM — The Oregon
Department of Agriculture
is discontinuing the sale of
a weed killer marketed as
being organic but contains
several unapproved ingre-
dients.
The product in question,
EcoMIGHT-Pro Weed &
Grass Killer, is manufac-
tured by EcoMIGHT LLC,
a company based in Florida.
Tony Primbs, pesti-
cides compliance manager
for ODA, said the agency
was contacted by a user
in November who was
concerned about whether
the product’s label was
accurate.
Despite being sold as a
25(b) chemical — or “mini-
mum risk” for public health
and the environment —
testing revealed the prod-
uct contains the herbicide
glyphosate and insecticides
permethrin and bifenthrin,
chemicals not included on
the label.
The undeclared ingre-
dients raise doubts over
whether the product is
suitable for organic farms,
Primbs said. The label also
lacked important safety and
handling instructions.
ODA issued a Stop Sale
or Removal Order on Jan.
Capital Bureau, File
The Oregon Department of Agriculture has issued a
statewide stop sale, use or removal order for the product
EcoMIGHT-Pro Weed & Grass Killer.
14. “Currently, we have an
investigator trying to fi nd
out as many facts as we
can,” Primbs said.
Calls to EcoMIGHT
were not returned. The
company’s website has
been replaced by a message
that states it has suspended
all operations as of July 31,
2021.
“Recent events have
brought to light that we are
no longer able to guarantee
the quality of EcoMIGHT
products,” the message
states. “To date, the manu-
facturer of EcoMIGHT has
not been able to assure us
that the high level of qual-
ity we demand will be met.”
Last year, the Califor-
nia Department of Pesti-
cide Regulation issued a
Stop Use Notice for two
EcoM IGHT products,
including EcoMIGHT-Pro
and W.O.W. Whack Out
Weeds! after testing showed
they contained glyphosate,
bifenthrin, permethrin,
cypermethrin and carbaryl.
“ It i s i m p e r a t ive
that we alert Califor-
nia organic growers that
these EcoMIGHT prod-
ucts contain substances that
are prohibited in organic
production, in order to
preserve the integrity of
the California organic label
and to protect our growers,”
California Department of
Food and Agriculture Secre-
tary Karen Ross said in a
statement.
The U.S. Environmen-
tal Protection Agency also
sent an advisory letter to
EcoMIGHT CEO Michael
Briansky war ning the
company may be in violation
of the Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide and Rodenticide
Act by selling misbranded
products, based on the Cali-
fornia tests.
Violations of FIFRA are
subject to a maximum fi ne
of $7,500 per violation.
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541-276-6207
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