Business
& AGLIFE
The Observer & Baker City Herald
B
Thursday, December 1, 2022
State
jobless
rate
rose to
4.1%
Unemployment in
Oregon increased in
October even though
state added 5,200 jobs
BY KATE DAVIDSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — Oregon added
5,200 jobs in October, even as
the state’s unemployment rate
rose to 4.1% and economic fore-
casters warned a mild recession
is likely within the next year.
The state jobless rate edged
up from 3.8% in September,
breaking 4% for the first time
since the beginning of 2022. It’s
now slightly higher than the
national unemployment rate of
3.7%.
“Despite the uptick in unem-
ployment, it’s still really low by
historical standards, at 4.1% in
Oregon,” said state employment
economist Gail Krumenauer in
a recorded statement.
Krumenauer noted that, af-
ter a net job loss in September,
hiring bounced back in Octo-
ber. The unemployment rate is
measured differently from the
tally of jobs statewide. For sev-
eral reasons, it’s possible for the
jobless rate to rise even as more
positions are filled.
In fact, Oregon’s private sec-
tor reached an all-time high of
1,682,300 jobs in October, ac-
cording to the Oregon Employ-
ment Department. That’s well
above its pre-pandemic peak.
Three sectors added more
than 1,000 jobs each last month:
financial activities; manufactur-
ing; and health care and social
assistance. Within the broad
category of financial activities,
employment gains in real estate
and rental and leasing were par-
ticularly robust, with 1,900 new
jobs. Construction and leisure
and hospitality businesses also
added hundreds of jobs, with
construction also reaching re-
cord-high employment.
Conversely, government and
retail trade groups lost hun-
dreds of jobs last month.
State economic forecasters
warned Wednesday, Nov. 16,
that they expect a mild reces-
sion to hit within the next year,
causing the state unemploy-
ment rate to peak at 5.4% in
early 2024. Forecasters antic-
ipate a loss of roughly 24,000
jobs, many of them in industries
tied to construction and man-
ufacturing. “A mild recession is
now the most likely outcome for
the economy,” state economists
wrote in their quarterly forecast.
It’s too soon to know how
deeply layoffs in the tech indus-
try could affect Oregon’s work-
force. Intel, the state’s largest
corporate employer, said last
month it would undertake ag-
gressive cost-cutting measures
including targeted job cuts.
Amazon, Twitter and Meta’s lay-
off plans have rocked the tech
world, but their impact is far
more pronounced in Washing-
ton. Meta and Twitter have laid
off at least 900 Washington em-
ployees so far.
Josh Rindfleisch/Wallowa County Chieftain
Dr. Nick West examines patient Bill Smergut during a visit at Winding Waters Medical Clinic on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. An Imbler High School graduate, West
is now on staff at the Wallowa County health center.
Hanging
his shingle
Imbler graduate Dr. Nick West joins staff at Winding Waters Medical Clinic
BY TRISH YERGES
For The Observer
ENTERPRISE — Dr. Nick
West, a board certified family
physician, is hanging his doctor’s
shingle and taking new patients at
Winding Waters Medical Clinic,
Enterprise.
West’s return to Northeastern
Oregon is the fulfillment of a long-
held dream to serve the health care
needs of rural families and patients
in his home territory.
“Winding Waters is very happy
to welcome Dr. West and his family
to our team and our community,
and we look forward to many years
of serving our patients together,”
Winding Waters Chief Executive
Officer Nic Powers said.
West is the son of Russ West, a
retired judge, and Mary West, an
Imbler schoolteacher. He grew up
on the family’s cattle ranch north-
east of Imbler and graduated from
Imbler High School in 2009.
He then attended Oregon State
University, where in 2014 he earned
a bachelor of science degree in
bio-resource research with minors
in toxicology and chemistry. He
earned a doctorate in 2019 after
which he and his wife, Alex, relo-
cated to Klamath Falls, where
he completed his three-year resi-
dency in family medicine in June
2022 at OHSU Cascades East
your newspaper
nitive stimulation he receives while
filling these roles.
“It’s just been so much fun to be
back practicing here and having the
reception from patients, coworkers
and colleagues,” he said. “In the last
couple months I’ve been getting
busier and busier.”
It’s the enthusiasm Powers sees
in West that makes him such a
good fit for the job.
“He’s of the community and un-
derstands a lot about people from
having grown up here,” Powers
said. “Whereas if we had brought
someone here from far away, they
might not get it.”
West said that he believes in the
comprehensiveness of family med-
icine at Winding Waters and the
team approach that is utilized to
solve a patient’s health problems.
Being a rural health care system,
the Wallowa County health center
offers an integrated approach with
wraparound services that conve-
niently meet the needs of the indi-
vidual patient or family.
West will be seeing patients at
the main clinic next to the hospi-
tal, and he’ll also be on a rotating
schedule at the clinics in Wallowa,
Enterprise and Joseph.
Generally, new patients have a
short wait list, and after they are
seen, patients have access to the
county’s care provider portal.
States take key role
in fighting fake
online reviews
BY ELAINE S. POVICH
Stateline.org
Your guide
to Eastern
Oregon
entertainmant
weekly inside
Family Medicine.
medical school that he worked at
“At Winding Waters, Dr. West
Winding Waters for six months.
joins a team of primary care profes-
“I really fell in love with Wind-
sionals providing care at clinics in
ing Waters, and since I was already
Enterprise, Joseph,
very committed to
“We are very excited rural family med-
and Wallowa,”
Powers said.
icine, this experi-
about his joining
West will also
ence kind of ce-
Winding Waters, and mented that,” West
take care of pa-
tients through
said.
we’ve been working
home visits, deliv-
“Then in my
on it for years,. We
ering babies in the
second year of res-
hospital, and work-
idency, I spent an-
were aware of Nick
ing shifts in the
other five weeks at
Wallowa County
West when he was just Winding Waters.
emergency de-
It was at that point
a medical student,
partment and as
that I signed the
rotation hospital-
and we knew he was contract to work at
ist doing inpatient
Waters.”
interested in coming Winding
rounds.
Powers said West
“We are very
back to Northeastern is an asset to Wind-
excited about his
ing Waters because
Oregon to take care
joining Winding
of his sharp apti-
Waters, and we’ve
of people. Happily, he tude for medicine
been working on
and his commit-
reached out to us to do ment to Northeast-
it for years,” Pow-
ers said. “We were
ern Oregon. He
a clerkship.”
aware of Nick West
was willing to offer
—Winding Waters, Chief
when he was just
“frontier medicine”
Executive Officer Nic Powers in all of its deliver-
a medical student,
and we knew he
ies, including mak-
was interested in
ing frequent home
coming back to Northeastern Ore- visits, pulling shifts in the hospital
gon to take care of people. Happily, ER, working as a hospitalist every
he reached out to us to do a clerk-
eight weeks and seeing patients at
ship.”
several clinics.
It was during West’s third year of
West said he thrives on the cog-
WASHINGTON — With
studies showing that at least
three-quarters of online shop-
pers check product and ser-
vice reviews before they buy,
the evaluations have become
more important than ever in
global commerce. But fake re-
views upend the system.
In the United States, state
attorneys general and a key
federal agency are leading
efforts to crack down on
false or manipulated reviews
that can lead to purchases of
shoddy products or services
and sometimes leave little re-
course for consumers.
Still, efforts to address the
problem pale in comparison
to the number of fake reviews
and the economic damage
they cause, according to re-
cent studies from the Center
for Data Innovation and the
World Economic Forum.
About 4% of worldwide on-
See Reviews / B2
Dreamstime via TNS
The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general are leading efforts to crack down on fake prod-
uct reviews.