A7
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021
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First-time unemploy-
ment claims fell sharply
last week, to a pandemic
low of 576,000, the Labor
Department reported
Thursday. That’s down
193,000 from the preced-
ing week’s surprise spike,
and an unexpectedly
strong showing even as
unemployment remains
elevated.
Economists had pro-
jected about 710,000
fresh claims for the week
ending April 10. The week
before, some 719,000
Americans applied for
unemployment bene-
fits. Now, claims sit at
their lowest level since
March 2020, when the
pandemic began, but still
well above pre-pandemic
levels.
For the same week
ending April 10, an ad-
ditional 131,975 Ameri-
cans filed claims for Pan-
demic Unemployment
Assistance, for gig and
self-employed workers.
A total of 16.9 million
people are continuing to
collect unemployment
benefits, down from 18.2
million in the previous
week.
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COVID-19 | Portland International Airport
BRIEFING
U.S. jobless
claims plummet
q
Travel soars to highest level of pandemic
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Oregonians are flying again.
Nearly 775,000 people trav-
eled through Portland Interna-
tional Airport in March, more
than twice as many as did in
February. While still well be-
low normal travel patterns, the
March passenger count was by
far the highest in the year since
the pandemic began.
Redmond Airport traffic increasing
Redmond Airport reported 18,872 boardings in February, a 7.5% in-
crease from January, according to the latest figures on the airport
website. But that was still more than 50% below the number of pas-
sengers boarding flights in Redmond in February 2020.
The airport forecasts travel
will be up again in April, to
813,000 passengers, and a
number of airlines are expand-
ing service — restoring flights
to Europe and a number of do-
mestic destinations.
There are several possible
explanations. March is spring
break in Oregon, always a busy
travel month. And Oregonians
— like people everywhere —
are tiring of the pandemic re-
strictions and missing family
and their favorite vacation des-
tinations.
Above all, though, the soar-
ing passenger volumes surely
reflect the effect of the vac-
cines.
The number of fully vac-
cinated Oregonians is now
approaching 1 million. The
vaccines are proving highly
effective, with cases of seri-
ous COVID-19 infections ex-
tremely rare.
It took until April 2 for fed-
eral health authorities to advise
that fully vaccinated people
can resume domestic travel.
See Air travel / A8
OREGON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES
EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY
CHANGES THE WORK
Dow crests 34,000
on economy news
Wall Street notched
more milestones Thurs-
day, as a broad market
rally pushed the S&P 500
to an all-time high and
the Dow Jones Industrial
Average crossed above
the 34,000 mark for the
first time.
The S&P 500 rose 1.1%,
with technology, health
care and communica-
tion stocks accounting
for much of the upward
moves. Only energy and
financial companies
closed lower. Bond yields
fell.
The rally came as in-
vestors welcomed a suite
of encouraging economic
reports showing how
hungry Americans are to
spend again, how fewer
workers are losing their
jobs and how much fat-
ter corporate profits are
getting.
Expectations are very
high on Wall Street that
the economy — and thus
corporate profits — are
in the midst of exploding
out of the cavern created
by the pandemic, thanks
to COVID-19 vaccinations
and massive support
from the U.S. government
and Federal Reserve.
March retail
sales soar 9.8%
Newly vaccinated and
armed with $1,400 stim-
ulus checks, Americans
went on a spending spree
last month, buying new
clothes and going out to
eat again.
Retail sales surged a
seasonally adjusted 9.8%
in March after dropping
about 3% the month
before, the Commerce
Department said Thurs-
day. The increase was
the biggest since May of
last year, when stores re-
opened after closing at
the start of the pandemic.
It was also much larger
than the 5.5% increase
Wall Street analysts had
expected.
Thursday’s report,
which covers about a
third of overall consumer
spending, is the latest
sign that the economy is
improving as vaccinations
accelerate, business re-
strictions are relaxed and
more people are willing
to head out to shop or
eat. U.S. consumer confi-
dence surged in March to
the highest level in a year.
— Bulletin wire reports
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian photos
Umatilla Electric Cooperative linemen Nick Hardie, from left, Matt Ellis and Mitch Colvin work on a utility pole in Hermiston.
BY JADE MCDOWELL • East Oregonian
HERMISTON —
W
hen Mitch Colvin started working as a lineman for Umatilla Electric Cooperative six years ago, he spent a lot of time
looking at maps. The maps, which crews hauled around in their pickup trucks, spanned two black binders, each
several inches thick and much wider than a standard binder. When linemen needed to locate a specific utility pole or
other infrastructure, they had to look up the right paper map out of thousands, then search the tiny numbers on the page, looking
for the right one.
Now, everything is digitized and ev-
eryone has an iPad.
“It speeds up the process a ton,”
Colvin said. “You just type it in and it
pulls it right up.”
The iPad not only pulls up the in-
formation that was previously con-
tained in the maps, but also a treasure
trove of other details, from the size of
a transformer to the name and phone
number of a customer associated with
a meter. Linemen can also add infor-
mation, such as photos, from on-site.
The geographic information sys-
tem used to help crews pinpoint in-
frastructure in the field is overseen by
Adelaide Zumwalt, GIS administrator
for the electric co-op.
At its Hermiston office, she toggled
through different maps, showing an
interconnected web of information.
On one map, little tree icons dotted
Umatilla Electric Cooperative’s service
area. Pins marked places where em-
ployees used their iPads to note a tree
that needs to be trimmed back from a
power line, instantly making that in-
formation available to those in charge
of vegetation management.
Hardie uses
a rope to
raise equip-
ment up to
fellow line-
man Ellis
while work-
ing on a util-
ity pole in
Hermiston.
See Electric / A8
Senate Democrats propose overhaul of jobless programs
BY TONY ROMM
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Senate
Democrats on Wednesday un-
veiled a sweeping new proposal
to overhaul the country’s un-
employment insurance system,
hoping to modernize the bene-
fits — and add more money to
millions of Americans’ weekly
checks — in the aftermath of
the coronavirus pandemic.
The new draft legislation
put forward by Sens. Ron
Wyden, D-Ore., and Michael
Bennet, D-Colo., seeks to ad-
dress the financial hardships
that many families experi-
enced over the past year, as the
coronavirus left a record num-
ber of people out of work and
struggling to obtain aid amid
the worst economic crisis in a
generation.
Under the Democrats’ pro-
posal, Americans could more
quickly apply to their states for
jobless assistance. Their checks
may be much larger as well,
allowing many low- and mid-
dle-income workers to receive
up to 75% of the wages they
earned when they had stable
employment.
In total, these workers would
be eligible to obtain at least 26
weeks of unemployment aid
if the new legislation becomes
law. But they also would stand
to collect additional sums —
and do so over longer peri-
ods of time — in the event the
country faces another major
downturn or public-health
emergency.
The bill includes additional
help for part-time workers and
those who drive for Uber, de-
liver for Grubhub or otherwise
participate in the gig economy.
For Wyden and Bennet, the
new standards seek to replace
what many Democrats see as
an unworkable, outdated sys-
tem that experienced immense
strain during the pandemic,
forcing millions of Americans
to wait weeks in some cases to
receive much-needed aid.
See Unemployment / A8