A11
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2021
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BRIEFING
Sunriver Resort
seeks 200 workers
Sunriver Resort will
host a hiring fair 4 p.m. to
6 p.m. Wednesday and is
willing to pay a starting
salary of $25 an hour for
housekeeping positions.
About 200 positions
need to be filled this sum-
mer. Candidates will be
offer ed positions on the
spot for the summer po-
sitions, according to the
resort’s announcement.
Other positions needed
filling include culinary
and marina staff, golf
services and shop atten-
dants, greenskeepers,
guest services, spa ser-
vice providers, pool and
recreation ambassadors,
lifeguards, food and bev-
erage, administration and
management.
The Cove Aquatic Cen-
ter will open on Memorial
Day weekend, and life-
guards, front desk, food
service and culinary staff
are also needed to oper-
ate the center.
“By offering competi-
tive wages and other em-
ployment perks, we hope
to attract and retain top
talent across a variety of
positions who will help
our guests create lifelong
memories with family
and friends every time
they visit Sunriver Resort,”
said Lindsay Borkowski,
Sunriver Resort director
of sales and marketing, in
a prepared statement.
Pot users
splurge on
$800 bongs as
stigmas fade
BY KIM BHASIN
Bloomberg
C
annabis accessories are
getting the luxury treatment,
from $800 bongs designed by
artists to $600 bespoke tabletop
lighters and $300 vanity trays.
These upscale products are
Milwaukie firm
changes name
Blount International, a
Milwaukie company that
sells chain saws, chain-saw
components and other
agricultural and landscap-
ing equipment, said Mon-
day that it will change its
name to Oregon Tool.
Founded in 1957, the
business was originally
known as Oregon Saw
Chain Co. It had 4,000
employees, about 900 of
them in Oregon, at the
time of its $855 million
sale to two private equity
firms in 2015.
Blount said Monday
that it now employs
about 3,000 worldwide,
including 700 who live in
the Portland area.
Blount will begin using
the new name June 2. It
currently sells products
under a variety of brands,
including Oregon, Woods
and ICS Diamond Tools.
The Oregon company said
Monday that it plans to
add complementary prod-
ucts to its existing line .
Air travel hits new
pandemic-era high
Americans set a re-
cord for pandemic-era air
travel, then broke it again
over the Mother’s Day
holiday weekend.
The Transportation Se-
curity Administration said
that slightly more than
1.7 million people were
screened at airport check-
points Sunday, the high-
est number since March
2020, when travel was
collapsing because of the
coronavirus outbreak.
Sunday’s mark was
about 4,500 more than
the previous record, set
just two days earlier.
However, those crowds
were still far smaller than
before the pandemic.
Sunday’s TSA count was
down 29% from the com-
parable Sunday two years
ago, according to TSA.
Air travel has been ris-
ing slowly for more than a
year since hitting bottom
in mid-April 2020.
Airlines say most of the
people on flights now are
leisure travelers going to
destinations within the
United States.
— Bulletin staff
and wire reports
catching on as stigmas around
marijuana dissipate and its
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Oregon to boost
jobless benefits
for new claims
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Newly unemployed Orego-
nians will get 9% more from
the state each week beginning
in July, with weekly benefits
rising to as much as $1,033 for
some workers.
The higher benefits are the
result of an annual adjustment
to the size of state unemploy-
ment benefits tied to Orego-
nians’ average wages. When
pay goes up for working Ore-
gonians, benefits go up for the
unemployed.
The new payments kick in
after July 4, according to the
Oregon Employment Depart-
ment, and only apply to new
jobless claims. It won’t change
the benefits for those who filed
claims before then.
The minimum weekly pay-
ment for regular claims will
increase from $157 per week
to $171. The maximum will
rise from $673 weekly to $733.
The size of jobless benefits var-
ies with the income workers
earned before they lost their
jobs.
In addition, Congress has
added a $300 weekly unem-
ployment bonus through Labor
Day to offset the economic im-
pact of the pandemic recession.
The higher jobless bene-
fits come as employers in Or-
egon and across the country
are reporting a labor shortage,
despite unemployment rates
around 6%. Many employers
suspect some people are delib-
erately remaining out of work
to collect the jobless benefits,
which exceed what some jobs
pay thanks to the weekly fed-
eral bonus.
The average weekly jobless
benefit is $16.75 in Oregon, ac-
cording to the employment de-
partment, which works out to
almost $35,000 a year. That in-
cludes the $300 weekly bonus,
which boosts the total average
payout by almost 80%.
State economists, though,
say the higher jobless benefits
are no more than a marginal
factor in the labor shortage.
More significant, they say, is
a hiring rush in some sectors
— bars and restaurants in par-
ticular — as vaccines prolifer-
ate and the economy emerges
from recession. That has cre-
ated intense competition for
workers.
Additionally, economists say
some people are still afraid to
return to the workplace while
COVID-19 infection rates re-
main high. And they say many
parents are unable to rejoin the
workforce because few Oregon
schools have returned to regu-
lar schedules.
White House plans to
reimpose work-search
jobless requirement
consumers seek to show off
cannabis culture. The items are
meant to be proudly displayed
and double as home d ecor and
art, rather than paraphernalia
BY JEFF STEIN AND MATT VISER
The Washington Post
that’s stashed away when
President Joe Biden said
Monday that the White House
will “make it clear” that Amer-
icans on unemployment must
take a job if offered a “suitable”
one or lose their benefits, wad-
ing into an issue that Republi-
cans have seized on in the past
week.
The White House said it is
directing the Department of
Labor to work with states on
reimposing work-search re-
quirements for Americans
collecting unemployment ben-
efits.
In remarks in the East
Room, Biden reiterated that
the administration disputes
GOP claims that April’s jobs
data, released Friday, shows
that unemployment benefits
are too generous and causing
workers to stay home rather
than rejoin the workforce.
The White House did not an-
nounce a departure from prior
policy on unemployment ben-
efits. Still, the president’s re-
marks suggest that the White
House is sensitive to the grow-
ing political criticisms over
their handling of the issue. Sev-
company arrives.
“For a very long time, the only
choice that a consumer had was in-
side the stoner meme, or the ston-
er-centric world,” said Nidha Lucky
Handa, CEO of cannabis brand
Leune, which is in part backed by
NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and
John Wall. “Does that describe every
consumer? No, not even close.”
The consumers are heading to
stores like Higher Standards, which
has opened flagships in New York
and Los Angeles. The company has
collaborated with d ecor icon Jona-
than Adler. Brooklyn’s Leaf & Wood
is also attracting shoppers with its
custom trays and rolling stations.
Then there’s fashion label Edie
Parker, known best for flashy acrylic
handbags inset with designs like a
toadstool house or a broccoli floret. It
added a selection of luxury cannabis
accessories to its fashion boutique on
New York’s ritzy Madison Avenue in
2019, putting bongs and bowls next
to clutches and asserting that can-
nabis has a place in even the haugh-
q
tiest shopping area, surrounded by
fashion houses like Emilio Pucci and
Lanvin.
Brett Heyman, Edie Parker’s
founder and creative director, said
even though artisanal pipes and
glassware have long been available,
display items weren’t popular.
Mainstream retailers are getting on
board. Urban Outfitters, for example,
sells Edie Parker’s grinders, lighters
and stash boxes in its “herbal accesso-
ries” section.
While it’s still early, investors are
getting interested as well. Raising
money for a cannabis business can
be difficult due to vice clauses and
the lack of federal legalization, but
the smoking accessories realm has no
such hang-ups.
“Accessories will probably end up
being a VC favorite because it doesn’t
touch the plant,” said Catharine
Dockery, a former Walmart Inc. ex-
ecutive who now runs her fund Vice
Ventures. “That being said, this is all
uncharted area.”
eral GOP-run states are mov-
ing to cut the unemployment
benefits on their own. Business
groups such as the U.S. Cham-
ber of Commerce have said the
supplemental unemployment
benefits approved by Biden in
March are discouraging work-
ers from rejoining the work-
force and stalling economic
recovery. Democrats and the
president have responding by
urging patience and noting
other factors, such as ongoing
concerns about the coronavi-
rus and the lack of available
child care for working parents.
Biden’s new message on
Monday was primarily to
demonstrate how the unem-
ployment system works and
underscore that the White
House does not believe the
benefits are to blame for the
labor shortage, according to a
senior administration official,
who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because she was
not authorized to speak pub-
licly. States waived their work
requirements for unemploy-
ment benefits at the start of the
pandemic, but 39 of them have
reimposed or are planning to
reimpose them.
Portland online banker Simple flubs shutdown
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Customers of Portland on-
line banker Simple lost ac-
cess to their accounts over the
weekend as its parent company
bungled Simple’s planned shut-
down. Many customers were
still without access to their
money Monday afternoon, two
days after Simple shut down.
“This has not been a good
conversion experience for
many of you,” parent bank
BBVA wrote on Twitter on
Sunday. “We know this, and we
sincerely apologize.”
Founded in 2009, Simple
was among the most promi-
nent of a generation of Port-
land tech startups that emerged
in the aftermath of the Great
Recession. It pioneered a no-
fee, mobile banking service
customized for smartphones
and won a devoted following
among clients who enjoyed its
straightforward approach and
tools to encourage people to
build their savings.
Simple never gained wide-
spread popularity, though, and
suffered a series of operational
problems while many larger
banks adopted the banking
tools similar to Simple’s inno-
vations. Simple sold to Spanish
banker BBVA in 2014 for $117
million but didn’t fit neatly into
BBVA’s portfolio.
In January, BBVA an-
nounced it would shut down
the Portland banker and elim-
inate the bulk of its 220 jobs,
transferring bank accounts
from Simple to BBVA. It called
the shutdown a “strategic de-
cision.” Neither Simple nor
BBVA disclosed how many cli-
ents Simple had.
That shutdown took place on
schedule Saturday, but BBVA
botched the account transfers
— leaving many customers
without access to their accounts.
BBVA said debit cards, ATMs
and scheduled transactions
were performing normally
— but it acknowledged other
problems were continuing.
The bank said it hadn’t an-
ticipated how quickly former
Simple customers would try
to enroll in online and mobile
banking services after the tran-
sition.
“There were technical dif-
ficulties with the enrollment
process, leading to high call
volume in our call centers,
which overwhelmed the sys-
tem, and created longer than
normal wait times,” BBVA said
in a statement Monday.
“We know this con version
process was not smooth for
our incoming Simple custom-
ers and we sincerely apologize
to them,” the bank said. “We
are working to make it right,
with people working around
the clock, and taking actions
like extending hours in our call
center and adding staff to han-
dle the incoming calls.”