A10
OREGON
East Oregonian
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Oregon economy continues to add jobs, nears full recovery
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — The addition
of 8,700 jobs in June moves
Oregon a little closer to full
recovery from the pandemic
downturn in spring 2020,
when the official unemploy-
ment rate shot up to 13.2%.
Oregon’s gains kept the
statewide unemployment rate
in June at 3.6%, essentially
unchanged from the previous
month (adjusted to 3.5%) and
identical to the national aver-
age. The record low of 3.4%
prevailed from November
2019 through February 2020,
at the onset of the coronavi-
rus pandemic.
“We continue to have a
strong labor market,” Gail
Krumenauer, economist for
the Oregon Employment
Department, said Wednes-
day, July 20, in an online
briefing for reporters. “Large
job gains have been reported
over many sectors of the
economy. No broad sector of
Oregon’s economy had large
job losses in June.”
According to the June
report, also issued July 20,
construction led monthly
gains with 2,800 jobs. Its
118,700 jobs overall is a
historical peak for Oregon,
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian, File
Job seekers visited booths at a job fair May 3, 2022, at the Pendleton Convention Center. The
Pendleton Chamber of Commerce coordinated with 40-plus businesses to assist those look-
ing for work and local employers. Oregon Employment Department on Wednesday, July 20,
reported the state added 8,700 jobs in June.
surpassing the 112,300 in
February 2020.
All construction indus-
tries grew rapidly over the
past 12 months, with several
growing by double-digits:
Building finishing contrac-
tors, up 13.2%; building
equipment contractors, up
11.5%; heavy and civil engi-
neering construction, up
10.8%; and specialty trade
Oregon Employment
Department readies
new computer system
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon
businesses and workers
will begin to see the roll-
out of a new computer
system for the Employ-
ment Department after
more than a decade of false
starts and frustrations.
When the transition
is completed in more
than three years, the new
system will automate
employer payroll and tax
records, employee claims
and benefits from the state
unemployment trust fund
— and also contributions
and benefits for Oregon’s
new program of paid
family leave, which starts
in 2023.
“It is a complex proj-
ect and a multiyear effort
to transform the Employ-
ment Department busi-
ness processes and core
technology so that they
are more flexible, adapt-
able and efficient,” said
David Gerstenfeld, acting
director of the agency since
May 2020.
State says 1,500 tests,
99% pass rate
On Sept. 6, the new
system will go live
with Oregon employers
filing their third-quarter
payroll reports, on which
their unemployment tax
pay ments are based.
Employers also will use the
new system to gain access
to their unemployment tax
rates.
On Aug. 28, the two
current systems that handle
those functions will shut
down to allow for the tran-
sition to the new system.
“We are doing this to
make sure all the remain-
ing work is completed,”
Gerstenfeld said. “We
think this will not have an
impact on most employ-
ers,” because they should
have completed filing
payroll reports for the
second quarter of 2022,
which ended June 30.
He said some employ-
ers that took part in agency
focus groups were invited
to log on to a copy of the
new system so they could
become familiar with how
it operates.
“It was positive over-
all,” he said, and suggested
adjustments will be incor-
porated into future work on
the system.
“Our staff has run more
than 1,500 test scenarios
with a 99% pass rate,” he
added. “Those scenarios
that did not pass were sent
back to the team, fixed and
will be retested. We are
also working with other
state agencies and organi-
zations we share data and
processes with to ensure
those connections are
intact and working the way
they need to.”
One of those agencies
is the Oregon Depart-
ment of Revenue, which
is the repository for the
unemployment payroll
taxes paid by employers.
Employees do not contrib-
ute to the unemployment
trust fund.
The new system, Fran-
ces Online, is named in
honor of Frances Perkins,
U.S. labor secretary during
the 12 years Franklin D.
Roosevelt was president
and also the first woman
appointed to a presidential
Cabinet back in 1933.
It will be paid for from
$89.6 million that the U.S.
Depar tment of Labor
granted to the state agency
back in 2009, and has been
sitting in the unemploy-
ment trust fund. The 2021
Legislature added more in
the current two-year state
budget for startup costs
connected with paid family
leave — Oregon is one of 10
states with such programs
— but that money will be
repaid from employer and
employee contributions to
the program.
States run their own
unemployment trust funds,
but the Department of
Labor oversees them under
an arrangement that goes
back more than 80 years to
the Great Depression.
The vendor is FAST
Enter prises, based in
Centennial, Colorado,
outside Denver.
2nd phase
starts in 2023,
3rd starts in 2024
On Jan. 1, Oregon
employers and employees
will begin under a second
phase of the new system
to contribute their shares
toward another fund for
family-leave benefits. Over-
all contributions are capped
at 1% of employee wages,
split between 60% from
employees (.6%) and 40%
from employers (4%). Actual
benefit payments are sched-
uled to start Sept. 3, 2023.
Lawmakers last year
changed the start dates
under the original 2019
law, which covers a range
of situations.
A third phase of the new
system will start in 2024,
when claims and benefits
for unemployed workers
will make the transition.
The project is scheduled
for completion by the end
of 2025, six months after
the end of the state’s 2023-
25 budget cycle.
contractors, up 10.7%.
Monthly growth also
occurred in other services,
such as auto repairs and hair
salons, 1,600; health care and
social assistance and leisure
and hospitality (bars, enter-
tainment, hotels and restau-
rants), 1,300 each.
“We have seen some
sectors still struggle to get
back to their pre-pandemic
levels,” Krumenauer said.
She said the health care
and social assistance sector
has rebounded strongly in
the first half of this year, after
lagging through the end of
2021.
The leisure and hospitality
sector also has added 28,500
jobs between June 2021 and
June 2022, or 16.4% growth.
But Krumenauer said recov-
ery in that sector is still only
87% of pre-pandemic levels,
and 14,600 jobs remain to
reach those levels.
She said public and private
education continue to lag in
job growth.
Oregon has regained 94%
of the jobs lost during the
pandemic, compared with
98% for the nation as a whole.
For Oregon’s private sector,
that mark is 98%.
The Oregon Office of
Economic Analysis, which
prepares the state’s quar-
terly economic and revenue
forecasts, has projected that
Oregon will see a complete
recovery of jobs by the
end of this year. When that
occurs, the recovery period
of two-and-a-half years
from the downturn will have
been relatively short — far
shorter than the seven years
Oregon required to recover
from economic downturns in
the 1980s and 2010s. Those
earlier recessions did not see
a record one-month jump in
the unemployment rate from
3.4% to 13.2% during March
and April 2020, unlike what
happened in the pandemic —
but high unemployment rates
persisted longer.
On July 18, the Employ-
ment Department released
its second-quarter report
on job vacancies. The
agency has compiled such
reports since 2013 — and
the 106,500 vacancies in the
newest report means that
Oregon has now exceeded
the 100,000 mark for a full
year. Employers told the
agency that three of every
four vacancies was hard to
fill. (Counting spring 2021,
vacancies ranged between
97,000 and 107,000 for a
record five quarters.)
“The need for workers
was widespread,” Krume-
nauer said. “Businesses are
looking to fill a variety of
jobs in more than 280 occu-
pations. That means it’s still
a tight labor market where
employers are having trou-
ble trying to find enough
workers.”
In Oregon and the nation
as a whole, she said there
are two job vacancies for
every unemployed person.
Krumenauer said employers
have raised pay, added bene-
fits, increased job flexibility,
changed job requirements,
and advertised vacancies
more widely, including the
statewide network of Work-
Source centers run by the
Employment Department
and partner agencies.
Nearly half of Oregon’s inmate population
included in first class action suit of its kind
By SAM STITES
Oregon Capital Chronicle
EUGENE — A federal
lawsuit involving current
or former Oregon inmates
infected with COVID-19,
including one who died, is
moving forward with noti-
fication of nearly half of the
state’s prison population of
their inclusion in the class-ac-
tion suit.
The U.S. District Court in
Eugene certified the class-ac-
tion status of the suit in April.
Since then, an administra-
tor appointed by the court
has been reaching out to the
class-action members. They
include about 5,000 people
who were infected with
COVID-19 and incarcerated
in Oregon starting on Feb. 1,
2020 and tested positive at
least 14 days after, accord-
ing to a class-action notice.
The suit includes all inmates
infected from mid-February
2020 through May 31 this
year. That group represents
40% of Oregon’s prison
population, which is more
than 12,000, according to the
state Department of Correc-
tions. Oregon has 14 prisons
for men and women.
The case, brought by
seven current and former
inmates, accuses state offi-
cials of violating their Eighth
Amendment rights, which
guarantees protection from
cruel and unusual punish-
ment. It also claims the state
was negligent in protect-
ing them from becoming
infected and preventing
inmate deaths.
The lawsuit marks the
first time in Oregon — and
perhaps the country — that a
judge has certified a class-ac-
tion seeking damages over
COVID-19, attorneys said.
More than 600,000 inmates
in the U.S. and Puerto Rico
have been infected with
COVID-19, according to the
COVID-19 Prison Project,
which is overseen by faculty
and students at several
universities across the coun-
try. The project’s data show
that nearly 2,900 have died.
According to the Oregon
Department of Corrections,
46 inmates infected with
COVID-19 have died.
The case does not specify
damages but attorneys said it
could cost the state millions
of dollars in damages and
fees. If it goes to trial as
requested, it would showcase
the Department of Correc-
tions’ treatment of inmates
during the pandemic. Dozens
of inmates sue the agency
every year, often represent-
ing themselves. Most cases
are dismissed.
Inmates can opt out of
being included in the class
action, which they might do
if they want to file their own
suit or for another reason. If
Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle
Inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem are included in a lawsuit over COVID-19
against the state.
they’re included, they would
share in damages, lawyers
said.
One of the plaintiffs
named in the suit, Juan
Tristan, who is represented
by his estate, contracted
COVID-19 while incar-
cerated at the Oregon State
Penitentiary in Salem and
died just over a year ago. The
other inmates who are named
Peters, director of Oregon’s
Department of Corrections
and President Joe Biden’s
nominee to lead federal pris-
ons; Oregon Health Author-
ity Director Patrick Allen;
and seven current or former
officials – denied in court
filings they were negligent
in protecting inmates from
COVID-19. They also said
they did not violate prisoners’
“I THINK THE STORIES THAT
STICK WITH ME ARE THE ONES
WHERE PEOPLE WATCHED THEIR
CELLMATES DIE IN FRONT OF
THEM BECAUSE OF THIS DISEASE
WHEN IT COULD’VE BEEN
PREVENTED.”
— Juan Chavez, director of the Civil Rights Project at the Oregon
Justice Resource Center
are imprisoned or were incar-
cerated at the penitentiary or
Oregon State Correctional
Institution in Salem along
with Coffee Creek Correc-
tional Facility, a women’s
prison in Wilsonville. The
lawsuit does not detail the
severity of their infections
but it does accuse govern-
ment officials of negligence in
not enforcing mask require-
ments, not properly screening
visitors for COVID-19, fail-
ing to adopt a robust testing
system for inmates and not
providing adequate sanita-
tion or training.
It said the state knew
that masking and social
distancing protected against
COVID-19.
“Defendants have failed to
take appropriate and prompt
steps to adequately prevent,
test and treat COVID-19
across all ODOC facilities,”
the suit said.
The defendants – Oregon
Gov. Kate Brown; Colette
Eighth Amendment rights
and were not responsible for
a “wrongful death.”
Spokespeople for Gov.
Kate Brown’s office and the
Department of Corrections
declined to further comment
on the case, citing pending
litigation.
The case was originally
filed in April 2020. A U.S
District Court judge granted
the case class-action status in
November 2021, approving
two classes in the case: the
first for wrongful deaths of
the 46 individuals who died
and another “damages class”
for all those who became
infected.
The state appealed the
class-action ruling but that
was denied in May. The
state’s motion to dismiss the
lawsuit early in the case was
also denied.
An attorney for the plain-
tiffs and director of the Civil
Rights Project at the Oregon
Justice Resource Center said
some of the inmates were
emotionally shaken.
“I think the stories that
stick with me are the ones
where people watched their
cellmates die in front of them
because of this disease when
it could’ve been prevented,”
said Juan Chavez. “That’s a
particularly scary, dangerous
and hopeless space to find
yourself … where you have a
system that’s allegedly built
to keep the public safe, but
also the people inside of these
prisons safe, and this was just
going to keep happening that
so many people were going to
die or get injured.”
The lawsuit maintained
that the state “acted with
deliberate indifference” to
inmate rights by failing in not
protecting inmates, including
by not separating corrections
officers who became infected
from the others. It also
accused the state of being
slow to vaccinate prisoners.
“On January 16 and 17,
2021, Oregon DOC offered
vaccines to approximately
1,558 adults in custody who
were deemed high risk or
who were elderly,” the suit
said. “Notwithstanding
that early vaccination of a
small number of adults in
custody, the remaining adult
in custody population – some
12,000 people – were not
scheduled for vaccination at
that time.”
In early February 2021,
U.S. District Court Judge
Stacie Beckerman ordered
the state to offer vaccines to
all inmates. Beckerman is
also hearing this lawsuit.
The complaint said that
allowing communal dining
inside prisons contrasted
with statewide closures of
restaurants and other eateries
on the outside. The lawsuit
said prisons have poor venti-
lation which helps prevent the
spread of the virus, and that
the population is at high risk.