A7
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
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BRIEFING
Oregonians to lose
pandemic benefits
Oregonians could lose
more than $70 million
in weekly employment
benefits after Labor Day,
when some federal pan-
demic aid programs ex-
pire and the state stops
paying a $300 weekly un-
employment bonus.
David Gerstenfeld, act-
ing director of the Oregon
Employment Depart-
ment, called it a “sobering”
moment Wednesday, The
Oregonian reported. He
warned that more than
115,000 Oregonians are
receiving assistance under
temporary programs that
date to the first COVID-19
relief act from March
2020.
Oregon has paid more
than $10 billion in job-
less aid since the start of
the pandemic, most of it
federal money provided
through a succession of
pandemic relief bills.
Those programs expire
the week ending Sept. 4.
The number of Orego-
nians collecting benefits
each week has been de-
clining for several months
and beginning this week,
workers must demon-
strate they are searching
for new jobs to continue
receiving aid.
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State says it will enforce heat-safety rules
BY JAMIE GOLDBERG
The Oregonian
Oregon’s workplace safety
agency says it will aggressively
enforce new emergency re-
quirements aimed at protect-
ing workers from extreme heat
as the state once again prepares
for hot weather.
Temperatures in Portland
could reach 99 degrees on Fri-
day, according to the National
Weather Service, with even
hotter conditions expected
elsewhere in the state. An ex-
cessive heat warning is in place
from Roseburg to Ashland in
Southern Oregon, where of-
ficials say temperatures could
reach 106 degrees.
At least two Oregon work-
ers died last month due to sus-
pected heat-related illnesses
after working through an un-
precedented heat wave that
shattered temperature records
across the state. The state is in-
vestigating two other workplace
deaths that occurred during the
heat wave as possibly heat-re-
lated, and dozens more heat-re-
lated investigations from that
stretch remain open.
In the wake of those deaths,
Gov. Kate Brown directed the
Oregon Occupational Safety
and Health division, known
as Oregon OSHA, to immedi-
ately adopt emergency rules to
protect workers from extreme
heat. Permanent rules, already
in the works but delayed by the
pandemic, are expected later
this year.
See Heat / A8
Once fading, mask sales
starting to rebound
U.S. jobless claims
drop by 24,000
The number of Amer-
icans collecting unem-
ployment benefits slid last
week, another sign that
the job market continues
to recover rapidly from
the coronavirus recession.
Jobless claims dropped
by 24,000 to 400,000 last
week, the Labor Depart-
ment reported Thursday.
The weekly applica-
tions have fallen more or
less steadily this year —
from a peak of 904,000
in early January. But they
remain high by historic
standards: Before COVID
struck the United States
in March 2020, claims
were coming in at about
220,000 a week.
The job market and
overall economy have
been recovering from
the collapse of the spring
of 2020. The rollout of
vaccines this year has
encouraged businesses
to reopen or expand
their hours and sent
cooped-up consumers
back out to visit restau-
rants, bars and shops.
Handheld video
game sells out
Playdate, the hotly an-
ticipated handheld video
game system from Port-
land tech company Panic,
sold all 20,000 of its initial
manufacturing run in just
20 minutes Thursday.
Panic is taking orders
for more of the $179 de-
vices but won’t deliver
them until sometime next
year.
Playdate is a throwback
to small handheld video
game systems from the
1980s. Instead of incorpo-
rating the latest graphics
and sharpest graphics,
Panic equipped Playdate
with an old school direc-
tional pad, a black-and-
white screen and a crank
on the side.
It’s meant to be both
nostalgic and innovative.
Playdate comes with 24
games, to be delivered
over a dozen weeks like
episodes of a TV series.
Playdate’s retro style
triggered fevered inter-
est but presented enor-
mous challenges for
Panic, which is primarily a
software company. It an-
nounced Playdate more
than 2 years ago and ini-
tially planned to start de-
livering the gadgets early
in 2020.
—Bulletin wire reports
A merchant displays masks for sale in Los
Angeles in March. Retail analysts expect
mask sales will increase after the Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Prevention
changed course on some masking guide-
lines, recommending that even vacci-
nated people return to wearing masks in-
doors in parts of the U.S. where cases are
surging. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP file
With new guidance from the CDC, retail experts expect another jolt for face coverings
BY ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
The Associated Press
EW YORK — Face masks,
which had started to disappear
from store shelves, may be front
and center again.
A spot check of businesses
and other data sources are showing that mask
sales have been rising in recent weeks as
Americans worry about the surging cases of
the delta variant of the coronavirus. Retail an-
alysts expect mask sales will get another jolt
after the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention late Tuesday changed course on some
masking guidelines, recommending that even
vaccinated people return to wearing masks
indoors in parts of the U.S. where the cases
are surging.
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Sales of masks rose 24% for the week ended
Tuesday, compared to the prior week, re-
versing weekly declines since May, according
to the Adobe Digital Economy Index. San
Francisco-based grocery delivery company
Instacart said mask sales via its online plat-
form have increased since the Fourth of July
weekend, reversing a decline that had begun
in April. And Google reports that searches for
the term “masks” doubled since the CDC an-
nouncement.
The scenario marks a shift from the past
two months when masks were getting heavily
discounted and were being pushed to the side
on the sales floor following the CDC move to
relax guidance on masks in May. Even before
then, data from NielsenIQ shows that mask
sales started to consistently decline weekly
Survey: Conservatives far more
likely to decline COVID-19 vaccine
BY SUZANNE ROIG
The Bulletin
Vaccination rates drop signifi-
cantly outside of the Portland
metro area, according to results of
a Oregon Values and Beliefs Center
survey.
The online survey of Oregon
residents showed the three coun-
ties making up the Portland area
had a 77% vaccination rate. In the
survey, 42% of those surveyed said
they had not received a COVID-19
vaccine.
The survey results mirror those
from December 2020 that gauged
how likely someone would be to get
the vaccine when it became avail-
able. The results were published at
the same time Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown announced the state would
follow Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention indoor-mask guide-
lines.
People who identified as so-
cially conservative were four times
since early April, going from $101 million
worth of masks to roughly $37 million for
the week ended July 3. It doesn’t yet have July
sales figures.
“People were just not buying them —
masks were really fading out,” said Neil Saun-
ders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.
He noted that even as consumers go back
to buying masks, the mask business is still
not going to be as big as last year during the
height of COVID-19. But he noted that stores
face challenges in determining how much
they should order and how much they should
display them.
“No one actually wants to go out and make
another big commitment,” Saunders said. “No
one knows what’s going to happen.”
See Masks / A8
Vacasa to go
public,; valued
at $4.5 billion
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Mary Altaffer/AP
A health care worker fills a syringe with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine July 22 at
the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The number of Americans
getting a COVID-19 vaccine has been rising in recent days as virus cases once
again surge and officials raise dire warnings about remaining unvaccinated.
as likely to say they would not re-
ceive the vaccine than those who
said they were liberal. What’s more,
nearly all those surveyed who said
they were college educated re-
ported having received at least one
dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
See Survey / A8
Portland vacation rental giant Vacasa said
Thursday it plans to go public in a deal that
values the business at $4.5 billion, vaulting
the young company into the top tier of Ore-
gon businesses.
A deal with an investment fund called
TPG Pace Solutions will list Vacasa under
the ticker symbol VCSA without the initial
public offering typically associated with new
stock listings. Such arrangements have be-
come extremely popular over the past two
years as a mechanism for going public with-
out the expense associated with a traditional
IPO.
The deal stands to make Vacasa the most
valuable new Oregon company in genera-
tions. It’s the latest in a string of public offer-
ings in Oregon and southwest Washington
that signals the emergence of a new class of
young business that could help anchor the
regional economy.
See Vacasa / A8