Business
AgLife
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Thursday, May 19, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
BUSINESS
State has job
vacancies
Oregon ‘underemployment’
rate hits a record low – but
there’s a downside
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
NEW
PURPOSE
Former chiropractor’s office being converted into a lodging site
Above: A new lodging site in La Grande,
unofficially named the Historic Fourth Street
Studios, is under renovation on Tuesday, May
17, 2022. The owners hope to open in late July.
By DICK MASON
The Observer
L
A GRANDE — A former La Grande
health care building, closed since 2010,
now has just what the doctor might
have ordered — a new purpose.
The structure, on Fourth Street between Washington Avenue
and Depot Street, is being converted into a multi-day lodging
site, one designed to meet the needs of individuals such as those
staying in La Grande on business, according to Jack Burgoyne,
of La Grande, who purchased the former office building with his
wife, Judy Burgoyne, in October 2021.
The future lodging site, now unofficially named the Historic
Fourth Street Studios, will have two spaces available for people
to rent. Each studio will have a kitchen, a queen-sized bed, a
hide-a-bed sofa, cabinets, a traditional oven, a refrigerator and
restrooms, showers and a washer and dryer. The Historic Fourth
Street Studios will also have features to help people who are
physically challenged.
See, Lodging/Page B6
Dick Mason/The Observer
Jack Burgoyne in early April 2022
cleans up the sidewalk outside
a building he and his wife, Judy
Burgoyne, are converting into a
lodging site on Fourth Street, La
Grande. The Burgoynes purchased
the office building in October 2021.
SALEM — Economic health is often
measured by the unemployment rate, an
easy-to-understand benchmark with ready
historical comparisons.
Economists and the public, though, have
been increasingly aware of the limitations in
the jobless rate. It leaves out those who want
work but have given up their search and
those working part-time gigs because they
can’t find full-time jobs.
So federal economists came up with the
U-6 rate, often called the “underemploy-
ment” rate, which includes the conventional
unemployed as well as those who have
recently stopped looking for work and those
stuck in part-time jobs.
The U-6 rate is higher than the conven-
tional unemployment rate — sometimes a
lot higher. And many, including the ana-
lytics firm Gallup, consider it to be the
“real” unemployment rate.
During the Great Recession, when
Oregon unemployment was running around
10%, the U-6 underemployment rate was
roughly double that. Oregon’s U-6 rate
topped out at 21% in the early days of the
pandemic in 2020, 8 percentage points
higher than the standard measure.
The good news is that underemployment
has fallen just as fast as the standard bench-
mark over the past two years. The U-6 rate
was 7.4% in March, the lowest point on
record. (Official unemployment was 3.8%
— near, but not quite at, an all-time low.)
That’s great news if you’re looking for a
job.
“If someone wants a job, they are out
there, unlike during the Great Recession
recovery,” said Anna Johnson with the
Oregon Employment Department, who
wrote a new analysis of Oregon’s labor
market. “And those job vacancies tend to be
for permanent, full-time work.”
But here’s the downside.
Oregon has more than 100,000 job
vacancies, with open jobs outnumbering the
unemployed. That worker shortage is con-
straining economic growth, in Oregon and
across the country.
Economists, and the Federal Reserve,
had hoped that workers would come off
the sidelines as the pandemic faded. It now
seems that there’s hardly anyone sitting out
– certainly not enough people to resolve the
labor shortage.
Josh Lehner with the Oregon Office of
Economic Analysis addressed that issue in
an essay earlier this month.
With immigration down sharply, and
Oregon’s workers growing older along with
the general population — “mediocre demo-
graphics,” Lehner calls it — the state has a
dwindling labor pool.
That’s a big part of the reason why jobs
are so readily available right now and why
paychecks are rising as employers compete
for workers. But with consumer demand
still rising, and production constrained by
the labor shortage and other factors, infla-
tion is rising even faster than wages.
The Federal Reserve’s tighter monetary
policy could help cool off demand, Lehner
writes. But the labor shortage? He says it
“will only change with broader societal
shifts or, say, increased immigration both
international and domestic.”
Familiar face turns up at county chamber
Deena McFetridge,
formerly of Joseph
Chamber, takes
administrative
assistant post
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE —
There’s a new face at
the Wallowa County
Chamber of Commerce
that belongs to someone
quite familiar in the busi-
ness community — Deena
McFetridge started there
Tuesday, May 3, as the new
administrative assistant.
She replaces Diane
Knox, who retires at the end
of the month after 12 years
in the post.
But McFetridge isn’t new
to such work. For the past
two and a half years, she’s
been president of the Joseph
Chamber of Commerce, a
volunteer position.
“It was all volunteer,”
she said in an interview
May 13. “Now I’m getting
paid to do what I love.”
Chamber work seems to
be McFetridge’s passion.
“I love helping the com-
munity out. I love repre-
senting the community,
telling information about
the community,” she said.
In fact, she’s hoping to
help the county chamber
grow. She says her primary
responsibility in the new
job is “to promote Wal-
lowa County and to get
members.”
She said there are
about 325 members in the
chamber from all over the
county, although not all
businesses are members.
Longtime county
resident
McFetridge has lived
in Wallowa County since
1985, having moved here
from La Grande. She said
her father moved here to
work as a meatcutter at
Safeway, a job he held for
several decades.
“We moved here when
I was in junior high,” she
said.
Her husband, Carl
McFetridge, is a county
native who works for the
county road department.
They raised a son and a
daughter here.
“They grew up farming”
and went onto careers that
reflect that background.
Their son is now a diesel
mechanic in La Grande, and
their daughter is the agri-
culture and welding teacher
at Burns High School.
Deena and Carl also
have strong ties to the coun-
ty’s ag community.
“We’re the beef super-
intendents at the Wallowa
County Fair and we’re
highly involved in the
Enterprise FFA alumni,”
she said.
McFetridge said she
also has personal experi-
ence working with busi-
nesses. She worked for the
Sports Corral in Joseph for
13 years and nearby Mad
Mary’s for 12 years.
But she’s hoping her new
job will be her last.
“I’m hoping this is my
last job, ever, in my life,”
she said.
Plenty of support
Both the county chamber
and the Joseph Chamber
expressed enthusiasm for
McFetridge in her new job.
Jude Graham, with
whom McFetridge worked
closely at the Joseph
Chamber, said she has high
hopes for the new situation.
“I think she’ll enjoy that
and do well,” Graham said.
She said the board of the
Joseph Chamber has yet to
designate a new chamber
president, so as vice presi-
dent, Graham is serving as
interim president.
Jennifer Piper, execu-
tive director of the county
chamber, was excited
to have McFetridge in
the post.
“She has some won-
derful, very relevant expe-
rience,” Piper said. “Obvi-
ously, I like her a lot or I
wouldn’t have hired her.
We’re excited to have
Deena and her experience
in the county, the volun-
teer work that she’s done,
the professional work she’s
done. Her work with the
Joseph Chamber is a really
good tie-in to what this role
is going to be.”
See, Chamber/Page B6