A13
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021
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DOW
31,832.74 +30.30
BRIEFING
Jeff Bezos sets
$10B climate goal
Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos plans to spend the
$10 billion he invested in
the Bezos Earth Fund by
2030, the fund’s new CEO
said Tuesday.
Since Bezos an-
nounced the fund in
February 2020, little has
been revealed about how
it would be used combat
the climate crisis.
Andrew Steer was
named as the fund’s CEO
on Tuesday, and in a se-
ries of tweets, he offered
a few details, including
that Bezos’ “goal is to
spend it down between
now and 2030.” That
would work out to a pace
of more than a $1 billion
a year.
“The Earth Fund will
invest in scientists, NGOs,
activists, and the private
sector to help drive new
technologies, invest-
ments, policy change and
behavior,” Steer tweeted.
“We will emphasize social
justice, as climate change
disproportionately hurts
poor and marginalized
communities.”
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bendbulletin.com/business
NASDAQ
13,073.82 +464.66
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S&P 500
3,875.44 +54.09
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30-YR T-BOND
2.26% -.04
q
CRUDE OIL
$64.01 -1.04
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GOLD
$1,716.60 +38.90
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U.S. airlines add
jobs; still down
U.S. airlines are adding
jobs as industry employ-
ment extends a rebound
from a low in October,
when tens of thousands
of airline workers were
briefly laid off after fed-
eral payroll aid expired.
Cargo airlines have
added jobs while pas-
senger airlines have shed
workers, mostly through
incentives for workers to
quit or take early retire-
ment.
The Transportation
Department said Tuesday
that 713,949 people held
full-time or part-time jobs
at airlines in mid-January,
up from 694,638 in De-
cember and the low of
673,278 in October.
However, the indus-
try’s January employ-
ment was still down 5%
from January 2020, be-
fore the United States felt
the brunt of the coronavi-
rus pandemic, which has
devastated air travel.
— Bulletin wire reports
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EURO
$1.1901 +.0043
Deschutes unemployment rate declines
BY SUZANNE ROIG
The Bulletin
Deschutes County has recovered 63%
of the jobs lost from the COVID-19
shutdowns that sent shockwaves
through the business community, ac-
cording to the most recent unemploy-
ment figures.
“We’re ahead of the curve as far as the
percent recovered,” said Damon Run-
berg, Oregon Employment Department
regional economist, of the January un-
employment rate released on Tuesday.
The county’s unemployment rate
dropped to 7% in January, down slightly
from December’s 7.6% rate, but still far
higher than the 3.4% rate of the same
time in 2020, according to the data.
Jefferson and Crook counties are still
experiencing job losses in the construc-
tion and leisure and hospitality sectors.
Jefferson County has recovered 57% of
its job losses since the initial COVID-19
shutdowns in March 2020. Crook
County’s unemployment rate inched up
slightly to 7.8% in January from 7.6%
in December, according to the data.
A full economic recovery in the three
counties is not expected until next year,
Runberg said. “There’s pent up demand,
particularly with the vaccine distribu-
tion,” Runberg said. “People will want
to travel and regional travel destinations
like Bend will be red hot.”
In fact, Runberg estimates that there
will be so many visitors that it might
frustrate residents.
That would be the best news for Lev
Stryker, owner of Cog Wild, a Bend
mountain bike tour company. Last year
was a wild ride for the business, Stryker
said. Because of mandated shutdowns
and limited tourism, Stryker said he re-
duced his staff and saw a drop in busi-
ness overall.
“It was a drop in numbers by a signif-
icant amount,” Stryker said. “It would
be great to have a busy year, and from
what we’ve seen so far, we will have a
busy summer. We have a lot of book-
ings already and people calling about
this summer.”
Given how robust this past summer’s
tourism was, Runberg expects summer
tourism will bump up job recovery past
90% of normal. And it’s that kind of
recovery that is noteworthy, Runberg
said.
“We’ve closed the gap,” Runberg said.
“In April 2020, we lost 17% of our non-
farm jobs in Deschutes County. We’ve
gone from that to 6.7% unemployment
is a lot of progress.”
Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@bendbulletin.com
Zillow sued
over alleged
antitrust
violations
BY HEIDI GROOVER
The Seattle Times
Nasdaq jumps,
4-month high
Technology companies
powered stocks higher
Tuesday on Wall Street,
driving the Nasdaq to
its biggest gain in four
months and more than
making up for a sharp
skid a day earlier.
The Nasdaq surged
3.7%, led by gains in Big
Tech companies such
as Apple, Amazon and
Facebook. Despite its big
day, the index remains
7.2% below its all-time
high set Feb. 12. On Mon-
day, it closed 10% below
its peak, what is known
as a “correction” on Wall
Street.
The tech stocks rally,
which helped lift the
S&P 500 1.4%, followed
a decline in bond yields,
which have been in-
creasing rapidly in recent
weeks, driving up long-
term interest rates.
The S&P 500 rose 54.09
points to 3,875.44. Com-
munication companies
and those that rely on
consumer spending also
helped lift the bench-
mark index, while finan-
cial, energy and industrial
stocks lagged the broader
market.
The Dow Jones In-
dustrial Average, which
is weighted less to-
ward tech than the
other two indexes, rose
30.30 points, or 0.1%, to
31,832.74. The Nasdaq
gained 464.66 points to
13,073.82.
SILVER
$26.15 +.91
Edward Stratton/The Astorian photos
ABOVE: Sondra Carr, of Weird Sisters Freak Boutique, helped
create a forested decor in the alleyway of the underground.
LEFT: Rob Collins moved Astoria Barber Co. into the Astoria
Underground over the summer.
GROWTH
in Astoria Underground
BY EDWARD STRATTON
The Astorian
A
forest is growing in the As-
toria Underground.
Foragers, an earthy col-
lection of artisans, recently
took over the center suite of the old
Astoria-themed underground village .
Jaz Carpenter, who founded For-
agers with Kirsten Norgaard of Kit’s
Apothecary, started painting por-
traits of people as mushrooms as a
quarantine hobby during the corona-
virus pandemic. She and Norgaard,
who creates CBD-infused products,
thought of how to combine their pas-
sions and those of other artisans into
a collective storefront.
The center suite of Astoria Under-
ground played host to a teahouse and
Floral Haze Vintage. With help from
some friends, they transformed the
space into a forest understory of deep
green walls, earthy brown floor and
bare wood displays.
“We wanted it to feel like the forest
floor,” Carpenter said. “We wanted
it to be as much handmade as we
could.”
Foragers displays the custom
woodworks of Mic Danielson at
NorseWest Woodshop and artist
Autumn Eve Montgomery Hurd,
known for her work around queer
representation, body positivity and
female empowerment. The store
also provides space for several hand-
made vendors, including Chef Dad-
dy’s seasoning salts, Forage & Farm’s
packs of dried wild mushrooms and
other edibles and Cloudy Day Can-
dle Co.
Foragers joins an eclectic collec-
tion of artisans populating the min-
iature village of the Astoria Under-
ground, including Kit’s Apothecary
and Cascade Screen Printing. Pianist
Bob Goldstick rents a studio where
he broadcasts his performances on
livestreaming platform Twitch. Son-
dra Carr, of Weird Sisters Freak Bou-
tique, helped create a forested decor
in the alleyway meandering around
the underground.
Rob Collins, who ran Astoria Bar-
ber Co. next to Reveille Ciderworks
until a business partner had a life
change, was about to sign a lease in
the Astoria Underground when the
coronavirus pandemic shut down
barbershops. After going into hiber-
nation for several months, he signed
on and said business, while not as
good as on Duane Street, has been
steady.
“It’s been good,” he said. “I love it
here.”
Business owners in the under-
ground are hoping for a new pro-
prietor to take over the now-vacant
coffee stand at street level on Ma-
rine Drive. The stand acts as kind of
an open sign drawing people to the
staircase that leads down to the col-
lection of businesses underneath.
But Carpenter said the hidden vibe
fits well.
“I feel like that’s Astoria’s vibe,” she
said. “There’s a lot of hidden gems
you have to seek out. But once you
find them, they’re great.”
A real estate startup is
suing Seattle-based Zillow,
alleging recent changes to
Zillow’s home-search web-
site unfairly hide certain
listings, shrinking their ex-
posure to potential home-
buyers and diminishing
competition among real es-
tate brokers.
The Austin, Texas-based
online brokerage Rex filed
a complaint Tuesday in fed-
eral court in Seattle. The
suit accuses Zillow and the
National Association of Re-
altors of violating state and
federal antitrust law.
Zillow said Tuesday, “We
are aware of the lawsuit and
believe the claims are with-
out merit and intend to vig-
orously defend ourselves
against it.”
The dispute stems from
Zillow’s recent move to go
beyond listing homes for sale
and create a brokerage to hire
agents itself. The company
announced in the fall that it
would join the National As-
sociation of Realtors.
As part of that move,
Zillow changed the way it
collects listings of houses
for sale. Zillow now gathers
listings directly from multi-
ple listing services, the data-
bases of listings provided by
real estate brokers.
Along with that came
the change that hit Rex:
Zillow now categorizes list-
ings under two tabs when
people search for homes for
sale: “agent listings,” where
homes listed on multiple
listing services show up, and
“other listings.” To enforce
National Association of Re-
altors rules, certain multiple
listing services require that
separation, according to the
complaint.
Rex markets homes with-
out listing them in a multi-
ple listing service, which its
website lambastes as “an an-
tiquated tool.”
Rex also sued the state of
Oregon in December, alleg-
ing a ban on rebates for real
estate commissions hurts
competition.
Critics say Oregon overtime bill would hurt farmworkers
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Critics say that requiring
Oregon’s agriculture industry to pay
higher overtime wages would be a “false
promise” of help to farm employees,
who’d actually lose work opportunities.
Unlike most other employers, farm-
ers don’t have to pay workers 1½ times
their normal rate if they work more
than 40 hours per week, but House Bill
2358 seeks to eliminate that exemption.
Proponents of the bill claim it would
end an unjust labor policy with “racist
and exclusionary origins” while rec-
ognizing the essential role that farm-
workers have in the state’s economy and
community.
“They do not belong to a lower class
of workers in Oregon,” said Rep. Ricki
Ruiz, D-Gresham, its chief sponsor.
“Exploiting human beings is never a
good thing.”
Supporters argue that agriculture
shouldn’t receive unique treatment un-
der the law because other industries, in-
cluding the construction and retail sec-
tors, also have peak seasons with higher
labor demands.
The bill’s detractors argue the good
intentions behind HB 2358 would fail
to materialize in reality because farmers
and ranchers are “price takers” subject
to the commodity markets and cannot
pass along higher costs to their custom-
ers.
Farmers cannot afford to pay higher
overtime wages and will instead seek
to avoid work schedules longer than 40
hours per week by increasing the num-
ber of shifts, shifting to less labor-inten-
sive crops, increasing mechanization, or
moving out-of-state, according to the
bill’s opponents.
“I think you may find you’re hurt-
ing my employees rather than helping
them,” said Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood
River, who grows pears.