A7
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2022
q
DOW
34,715.39 -313.26
BRIEFING
State jobless rate
drops to 4.1%
Oregon job growth
slowed a bit last month,
with fewer new jobs and
only a slight decline in
the monthly unemploy-
ment rate.
Unemployment fell
to 4.1% in December, ac-
cording to data released
Thursday from the Ore-
gon Employment Depart-
ment, down from 4.2%
the prior month. That’s a
bit higher than before the
pandemic but still near an
all-time low.
Oregon added 8,200
jobs last month, 1,000
fewer than in November.
The state averaged 8,900
new jobs per month last
year, 107,000 new jobs al-
together during 2021.
The national unem-
ployment rate was 3.9%
last month.
Hiring was tight all
last year, with employers
of all kinds seeking to
boost their operations as
the pandemic recession
faded. Many organiza-
tions reported extreme
difficulty finding work-
ers, with some having
dropped out of the labor
force, moved on to new
industries or stayed home
to care for family mem-
bers or avoid the coro-
navirus.
Sectors that added the
most Oregon jobs last
month included hospi-
tality, 2,600 jobs; health
care, 1,200 jobs; manu-
facturing, 900 jobs; and
professional services, 900
jobs. All are fields with a
high number of unfilled
vacancies.
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Sisters firm Cognito acquired for $252M
BY SUZANNE ROIG
The Bulletin
Sisters-based Cognito, a financial
identity verification firm, has been
acquired for $252 million by Plaid, a
financial tech firm that connects con-
sumer bank accounts to financial appli-
cations.
The announcement was posted on
Plaid’s website Thursday and confirmed
by Cognito officials.
The two firms have developed tools
that work to verify someone’s identity
across almost all financial services, yet
remains a major challenge for many
companies that stitch together differ-
ent solutions to get the tools and data
needed, according to Plaid’s website.
Cognito started out as a small tech
company of two friends in Palo Alto,
California, but in March it decided to
move its headquarters to Sisters.
“We have no plans to close the Sisters
office,” said Ravi Dehar, Cognito’s head
of marketing, in an email. “We have a
new employee starting next month who
is relocating to Bend to join us,” Dehar
said.
The Sisters Chamber of Commerce
sees tech companies like Cognito as a
way to diversify the economy beyond
tourism, said Judy Trego, chamber
CEO.
“The burgeoning tech industry is
having a positive impact all over the
world,” Trego said. “I call it the great
escape. Tech companies are looking
for under-the -radar places to work
in. Companies like this want a place
to work in that isn’t an urban environ-
ment.
“We have several large companies
that have their headquarters in our ru-
ral town. It’s a good day for Cognito.
We’re happy for them.”
The acquisition will enable Plaid, a
data network, to expand its reach. Plaid
works with thousands of financial tech
companies such as Venmo and many
banks to make it easier for people to
connect their financial accounts to the
apps and services they want to use.
Plaid, was founded in 2014 by Zach
Perret and William Hockey. It is head-
quartered in San Francisco.
“I sincerely believe that Plaid is a
perfect home for Cognito,” said Alain
Meier, Cognito CEO. “Plaid believes
in our vision to drastically reduce the
overhead of onboarding customers
for all fintech applications. With Plaid
backing us, we will continue to build
amazing products for years to come.”
Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@bendbulletin.com
Pandemic hasn’t slowed China’s
love for U.S. lobster
Home sales fall;
inventory low
Sales of previously oc-
cupied homes fell in De-
cember for the first time
in four months as many
would-be buyers were
frustrated by a lack of
available houses, which
fell to the lowest level in
more than two decades.
Existing home sales
dropped 4.6% last month
from November, to a sea-
sonally adjusted annual
rate of nearly 6.2 million,
the National Association
of Realtors said Thursday.
The demand for
homes remains healthy,
the group said, with
median prices jumping
nearly 16% from a year
ago to $358,000. Homes
sold in an average of 19
days, slightly higher than
in the summer but still
quite rapid. Yet the num-
ber of houses for sale
slumped to just 910,000
in December, the fewest
since records began in
1999.
The inventory of
homes for sale has fallen
40% from pre-pandemic
levels, Donaldson said.
Mortgage rates
continue to rise
Average long-term U.S.
mortgage rates contin-
ued to rise this week. The
rate on the benchmark
30-year loan breached
3.5%.
Home loan rates have
been running in recent
weeks at levels not seen
since early 2020, when
the coronavirus pan-
demic was breaking in
the U.S. They remain at
historically low levels,
however.
Mortgage buyer Fred-
die Mac reported Thurs-
day that the average rate
on the 30-year loan rose
to 3.56% from 3.45% last
week. By contrast, it stood
at 2.77% a year ago.
The average rate on
15-year, fixed-rate mort-
gages, popular among
those refinancing their
homes, jumped to 2.79%
from 2.62% last week.
— Bulletin wire reports
AP file photos
ABOVE: Lobsters are packed for shipment at the Lobster Company in Kennebunkport, Maine. BELOW: A lobster rears its claws after being caught off Spruce Head,
Maine, last year.
BY PATRICK WHITTLE • Associated Press
P
ORTLAND, Maine — China is showing
no signs of slowing its demand for Amer-
ican lobster this year despite disruption to
the supply chain and international trade caused
by the coronavirus pandemic.
Chinese demand for the crustaceans grew
dramatically during the 2010s in part because
of the expansion of the country’s middle class.
The lobsters are especially sought after in winter
because they are a popular delicacy on Chinese
New Year, which is Feb. 1 this year.
American exporters sent more than 13.2 mil-
lion pounds of lobster to China during the first
11 months of 2021. That was about 6% more
than the same time period the previous year.
The pandemic has made the already difficult
task of sending live seafood across the globe
more challenging, but Maine lobster export-
ers are gearing up for a decent Chinese New
Year, said Bill Bruns. The operations manager
at The Lobster Co. in Arundel said shipments
are complicated by the fact the company can’t
send lobsters to Beijing because of COVID-19
restrictions — but they are able to send to other
airports, such as Shenzhen.
“Chinese New Year is always a crapshoot
the last couple years,” Bruns said. “But I’m pre-
pared for it. I have the staff. Because otherwise
it’s going to be a long spring.”
China buys lobsters from the U.S. — where
the industry is based mostly in Maine — and
Canada, where the industry is situated in the At-
lantic provinces. Exports from Canada were up
even more than the U.S. the first 11 months of
2021 compared to 2020, said John Sackton, an
industry analyst and founder of SeafoodNews.
com.
Signs point to a strong season for the indus-
try, Sackton said. Consumption of seafood could
also get a boost from the Beijing Winter Olym-
pics, which are set to start a few days after Chi-
nese New Year, he said.
“I’ve seen nothing that consumption of lob-
sters at Chinese New Year this year won’t exceed
last year’s,” Sackton said.
The U.S. lobster industry weathered similar
challenges during the first year of the pandemic
in 2020 and ultimately had a strong export sea-
son. The value of exports was down from the
record year of 2018, but still well over $100 mil-
lion.
High prices for lobsters have played a role in
the value of this year’s exports. The price of a live
1.25-pound hard shell lobster was $11.25 per
pound in New England this month, according
to business publishing company Urner Barry.
That was more than a third higher than January
2021.
To send lobsters to China, American and Ca-
nadian fishermen have to trap them in the cold
waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Bad weather has
made that difficult for Maine fishermen this
year, but harvesters are still having a decent win-
ter on the water, said Kristan Porter, president of
the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
“When guys get out there, they are doing OK,”
Porter said. “It takes someone hardier than me
to fish the wintertime.”
Oregon has more open jobs than unemployed people
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Oregon employers had a no-
toriously difficult time filling
jobs all last year.
Burger flippers, chipmakers,
pipefitters, nurses. They were
all in short supply.
New data out from the state
helps explain why. Employers
posted tens of thousands of
job openings last year as the
pandemic recession faded. At
the same time, Oregon’s unem-
ployment rate plunged.
That created an unprec-
edented mismatch: By fall,
the state had more job open-
ings than people looking for
work. It’s the first time that’s
happened since at least 2013,
when Oregon began conduct-
ing its quarterly job vacancy
survey.
The most recent survey from
the Oregon Employment De-
partment found the state had
about 103,000 job openings in
October. That’s actually slightly
fewer than during the summer.
The state’s labor squeeze
didn’t ease up at all, though,
because unemployment was
falling even faster. Oregon’s
jobless rate dropped to just
4.4% in October, near a his-
toric low. It fell to 4.2% in No-
vember.
Layoffs spiked when the
pandemic hit Oregon in the
spring of 2020. At that time,
when Oregon unemployment
was at a record high, there were
nearly six people on the jobless
rolls for every open job.
By the fall of 2021, though,
the situation had reversed.
“There are now more job
openings than there are unem-
ployed people,” said Gail Kru-
menauer, economist with the
employment department.
The state had just 7 unem-
ployed people for every 10 job
openings. Oregon’s experience
mirrors what happened na-
tionally.
“There’s just simply not
enough available workers for
this record, or near-record,
level of job openings,” Krume-
nauer said. “This is head and
shoulders above where we’ve
been before.”
The turnaround is testament
to the speed and scale of the
economic recovery. But the
worker shortage created prob-
lems of its own.
Builders, factories, hotels,
pubs and restaurants all strug-
gled to meet customer demand
for the simple reason they
couldn’t find enough workers.
Hospitals, nursing homes and
clinics have struggled to find
staff, too.
Health care was the largest
category of job openings last
fall, according to the employ-
ment department’s survey, with
about 28,000 vacancies. Con-
struction, retail, manufactur-
ing and hospitality jobs were
next, each with around 10,000
openings.
The worker shortage pro-
duced a big spike in wages. The
state’s survey said vacant jobs
were offering an average hourly
wage of $21.22, up about 14%
from a year earlier — even after
adjusting for inflation.
Higher wages are, of course,
great for workers. But as em-
ployers bid up what they’ll pay
their new hires, and consum-
ers bid up what they’ll pay for
products in short supply, that
feeds into the inflationary cy-
cle.
And with prices rising at an
annual rate of 7% annually,
according to the latest federal
data, most Americans are more
worried about inflation than
they are about job security, ac-
cording to the latest survey of
consumer sentiment by the
University of Michigan.