A11 B USINESS THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2021 p DOW 34,393.98 +186.14 BRIEFING Amtrak restores service on routes Amtrak says it will restore daily service on 12 long-distance routes across the country, in- cluding two that run through the Northwest. The Empire Builder — Chicago to Seattle/Port- land — and Coast Starlight — Seattle to Los Angeles — routes resumed daily service Monday, giving passengers on the West Coast more travel options . The routes had only been operating three times a week due to low rider- ship during the pandemic. The Amtrak Cascades route also added a sec- ond round trip between Seattle and Eugene and a third round trip on the Se- attle-Portland segment. Service to stations north of Seattle remains suspended. Trips to British Columbia on the Cascade line have also not been restored due to the bor- der closure. Following COVID-19 health proto- cols set by Washington state as part of its reopen- ing plan, capacity for train cars has been set to 50%. The service restoration will also bring back 1,200 furloughed employees. p NASDAQ 13,661.17 +190.18 bendbulletin.com/business p S&P 500 4,197.05 +41.19 q 30-YR T-BOND 2.31% -.02 p p CRUDE OIL $66.03 +2.45 GOLD $1,884.60 +7.90 p State sets deadline to begin job search Oregonians receiving regular unemployment benefits must start look- ing for jobs by July 31 to keep receiving their weekly payments, the state said Monday, re- instating a requirement that had been on hold during the pandemic. On Monday, the Ore- gon Employment Depart- ment laid out the timeta- ble for people to resume their work search. An initial batch of 35,000 workers are re- ceiving notices indicating they must register with the state’s iMatchSkills program, which matches their qualifications with current job openings on file with the state. The employment department says 220,000 claimants will have to register, so the state is breaking that total into groups and phasing in the registration period over five weeks. — Bulletin wire reports p EURO $1.2213 +.0032 Biden bets on wage growth for recovery BY JOSH BOAK Associated Press The Biden administration recently gave a bit of simple advice to businesses that are unable to find workers: Offer them more money. This recommendation, included in a White House memo about the state of the economy, gets at a fundamental tension in an economy that is return- ing to full health after the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses are coping with spiking prices for goods such as steel, ply- wood, plastics and asphalt. Yet workers, after enduring a year of job losses, busi- ness closures and social distancing, are no longer interested in accepting low wages. Administration officials say the White House is not trying to target a specific wage level for workers. But of- ficials say higher wages are a goal of President Joe Biden and a byproduct of his $1.9 trillion relief package and at least $3.5 trillion in additional spending being proposed for infrastructure and education. Boosting wages gets at the central promise of the Biden presidency to im- prove the lives of everyday Americans and restore the country’s competitive edge in the world. Republicans say that Biden’s policies have already let loose a torrent of inflation that will hurt the economy. The outcome of these com- peting forces could decide the trajectory of the U.S. economy as well as the fac- tors weighing on voters in next year’s elections. The New York Federal Reserve re- ported this month that there has been a 26% increase over the past year in wage expectations by noncollege graduates. The lowest average salary they expect for a new job is $61,483, up more than $12,700 from a year ago. The wage pressures feeds into some anxiety about inflation. The Biden team sees the 0.8% month-over-month jump in consumer prices in April as tempo- rary, a sign of consumer demand and the bottlenecks that naturally occur when an economy restarts. But newly released minutes from the Fed’s April meeting suggest the U.S. central bank could possibly raise interest rates ear- lier than previously indicated to stamp down inflation and potentially limit economic growth. The monthly jobs and inflation data can be volatile as the economy restarts, such that a single month could be an outlier instead of an underlying trend. What makes the current situation unique is that wage pressures generally build when the unemployment rate is low. But the rate is 6.1% and the coun- try is 8.2 million jobs below its pre-pan- demic levels, historically the kind of numbers that might lead workers to set- tle for lower earnings. The difference this time is that the government spent a combined $6 tril- lion over the past year, including relief packages passed under former Presi- dent Donald Trump, to minimize the economic damage from the pandemic. Western water shortages change what farmers plant; rice down 20% OREGON BY SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN Capital Press Peloton plans first U.S. factory in Ohio Peloton plans to spend about $400 million to build its first U.S. factory in Ohio. The exercise equipment maker said Monday the Peloton Out- put Park will make the Peloton Bike, Bike+ and Peloton Tread starting in 2023. It will have more than 200 acres and more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing, office and amenities space. The company anticipates add- ing more than 2,000 jobs in Ohio over the next few years. Positions will span corporate, manufactur- ing, assembly and quality assurance functions. The New York-based company has factories in Asia and employs about 3,700 people, according to FactSet. Peloton has faced surg- ing demand during the pandemic. It reported that revenue in the first three months of the year more than doubled on strong subscription growth. Last December, the company spent $420 million to ac- quire Precor, a company whose fitness machines populate hundreds of commercial and hotel gyms. That deal gave Pelo- ton its first manufacturing capacity in the U.S. SILVER $27.89 +.42 NO SIGN OF RECOVERY IN MANUFACTURING A Precision Castparts welder works on an aircraft engine component in the Portland headquarters. BY MIKE ROGOWAY The Oregonian regon hotels are reopening, restaurants are serving meals again and workers are beginning to return to the office as vaccines pro- liferate and the COVID-19 pandemic begins to fade. The state’s factories, though, may have suffered permanent damage. Overall, Oregon has recovered 59% of jobs lost during the pandemic, and the state’s jobless rate has receded from 13.2% in April 2020 — the highest point on record — to 6% last month. That progress reflects the easing of health re- strictions and billions of dollars in fed- eral money that helped prop up the pri- vate sector during the pandemic. The manufacturing sector isn’t showing a similar bounce. Oregon has recouped just a fifth of the factory jobs it lost a year ago, and recent numbers point in the wrong direction. As Oregon Employment Depart- ment economist David Cooke noted this month, the number of hours Ore- gon manufacturing workers spend on O the job had been in decline even ahead of the pandemic. Before anyone ever uttered the words “COVID-19,” econ- omists were warning the state faced a “manufacturing recession” as for- mer President Donald Trump’s trade war disrupted global supply chains and economies slowed in Europe and China. And while Oregon never shut down private factories with coronavirus health directives, some of the markets those factories serve were severely af- fected by the pandemic. Metal components manufacturer Precision Castparts laid off 40% of its workers worldwide last year as demand for airplanes dried up and Boeing shut down production of its troubled 737 MAX. Railcar maker Gunderson cut jobs the month before the pandemic hit, then more in the ensuing months. Steelmaker Evraz cut its Portland workforce by about half. Even as many other sectors have ex- panded this spring, Oregon’s manufac- turing sector shed 700 more workers in April, according to the latest state data. Rob Finch/The Oregonian file Factory workers average about 38 hours a week on the job — an hour fewer than before the pandemic. Econ- omists look to those hourly figures as a key indicator of the manufacturing sec- tor’s health. A shortage of computer chips has hobbled manufacturing across the country, holding up everything from gadgets to automobiles while factories wait for key components to become available. And factories in Oregon and across the country are facing a tight labor market as businesses rush to re- open and rehire. Oregon remains among the most manufacturing-dependent states in the nation. And the state’s factory jobs pay relatively well, with average earnings of around $75,000 annually, compared to $59,000 across all industries. Manufacturing is a notoriously cy- clical industry, with big swings amid changing economic conditions. But Oregon factories have been in steady decline for decades, and recent reces- sions have produced only partial recov- eries — and lasting damage. Bitcoin bounces after weekend drop BY HAMZA SHABAN The Washington Post Bitcoin investors were strapped into another roller coaster ride of sudden drops this weekend, as the price dove below $32,000 before recovering some- what on Monday. Leveling at about $37,000 during Monday morning trading, the most valuable cryptocurrency is still up about 30% for the year. But the most recent sell-off highlights the staggering volatility of the crypto market and the huge losses that investors can suffer in the span of just days or hours. Bitcoin holders have seen their investments slide more than 40 percent since the high of $65,000 set in April. Overall, the crypto market has bat- tered investors over the past week as world governments signal increas- ing scrutiny and traders liquidate their holdings, halting the frenzy that pushed prices skyward. The total value of all cryptocurrencies tumbled by more than $400 billion over the past seven days, according to CoinMarket- Cap, the cryptocurrency price tracker. The plunge in prices comes as U.S. Treasury officials announced a new tax compliance plan to raise an additional $700 billion, including a measure to enhance reporting requirements on cryptocurrency. Under the initiative, unveiled Thursday, companies that re- ceive cryptocurrency with a fair market value of more than $10,000 would be required to provide the Internal Reve- nue Service with more financial infor- mation. The report described digital cur- rency as a “significant concern.” “Cryp- tocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion,” the report said. Potentially rattling investors further, government proposals put forward on Friday would limit cryptocurrency ex- changes based in Hong Kong to serve only those users who are professional investors — those who already have a significant investment portfolio — knocking retail investors out of the reg- ulated market. Dogecoin, the popular cryptocur- rency that began as a joke, was also down significantly from its all-time high. The token was trading at about 32 cents Monday morning, down from a record 74 cents reached during the run up to billionaire executive Elon Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” Wall Street strategists face an almost impossible task in trying to analyze the outlook for tokens. Even so, they are still trying. Mathew McDermott, global head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs, wrote that the company is looking at cryp- to-related offerings, such as “fund or structured note-like products.” Bitcoin, Ether and Dogecoin are still sitting on major gains over longer time- frames, such as the past year — about 12,000%, in the case of Dogecoin. Bloomberg News contributed to this report. Widespread drought and water shortages in 2021 are affecting what farmers in the Western U.S. are plant- ing. Farmers across Oregon and Cal- ifornia are making difficult decisions: tearing out acreage, replacing water- dependent crops with crops that can thrive on dryland and leaving land fallow. Rice, a water-dependent crop, has been affected. According to the Cali- fornia Farm Bureau Federation, rice farmers are planting fewer acres this year. Analysts say the state’s rice acre- age will likely be down 20% from aver- age because of water restrictions, driv- ing up the price. The U.S. Department of Agricul- ture estimated California will produce 471,000 rice acres this year, down 9% from 2020. Industry leaders predict farmers will leave about 100,000 acres of rice ground idle this year. Cranberries, like rice, need wet conditions to thrive, and experts say this year’s water shortages will impact cranberry producers’ planting and harvesting decisions. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Oregon’s south- ern coast — a major cranberry-grow- ing region — is already experiencing severe to exceptional drought. Over the past 10 years, as water shortages have become more com- mon, experts say the shrinkage in al- falfa acreage has been “dramatic.” According to USDA’s National Ag- ricultural Statistics Service, California farmers in 2020 harvested just 515,000 acres of alfalfa, down from more than 1 million acres in 2010. Oregon’s al- falfa acreage also shrank during that timeframe — by nearly 14%. “Drought has been a huge contrib- utor to the decline in alfalfa acreage,” said Daniel Putnam, Extension agron- omist and forage specialist at the Uni- versity of California , Davis. “Water uncertainty, labor and economics, I think, have driven the shift to different crops.” Although the West exports hay, Put- nam said it’s actually a “hay deficient region.” With shrinking alfalfa acreage, Putnam said he expects higher hay prices this year — good for hay grow- ers, bad for livestock producers. In the best almond-growing regions, most growers are continuing as-is or even scaling up production. In con- trast, some growers across drier areas are pulling out hundreds of almond acres and either planting other crops, like pistachios, or finding other uses for land, like leasing to solar facilities. Overall, however, the almond indus- try continues to grow by acreage and production, said Richard Waycott, the Almond Board’s CEO and president. Farmers growing other crops, in- cluding vegetables and fruits, are also suffering. Industry leaders across commod- ities are pushing legislators to have more conversations about groundwa- ter recharge, stormwater and recycling of municipal wastewater.