A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Workers
Continued from Page A1
He said he suspects his
employees appreciate their
training, but also other perks. He
oﬀ ers insurance and vacations.
Depending on their experience,
a new driver can earn $20 to $22
per hour. His crane operators
can earn $23 to $40 or more.
These are nonunion jobs,
but Karlson said employees can
beneﬁ t from not being union
members. Union employees, he
said, might have to wait years
before they can receive crane
training. This is not the case for
his workers — they can start
training right away.
Turnover, then, is low,
according to Karlson. His
workers appreciate their jobs
and the beneﬁ ts of their labor,
so they work well, but this is
not all. They did not just start
working hard when they joined
his company; they started as
good workers.
Karlson relies on pre-em-
ployment interviews to screen
potential employees. Even if he
has to do interviews by Zoom,
rather than in person, he likes
to be able to look a potential
employee in the eye. He said he
tries to ﬁ gure their abilities and
their character. If he thinks an
employee will be a good ﬁ t, he
said, they usually are.
Karlson said his company is
“in the best position we’ve ever
been,” and this is during a pan-
demic when many other com-
panies are struggling to retain
or to ﬁ nd employees.
N.W. Crane has experi-
ence in worker relations, which
Karlson attributed to its humble
beginnings. The company grew
as part of N.W. Metal Fabri-
cators Inc., a company owned
by his father, Kerry Karlson.
His father was doing well with
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian/East Oregonian
Riley Sederburg of Adams lines up a hydraulic component while working with Hermiston-based N.W. Crane Service Inc. to assemble
a crane.
Christopher
Rich
Gail
Krumenauer
metal fabricating, but he saw
the need for cranes. When he
started operating his own crane,
more and more employers
approached him for help. He
added a second crane, which
led to more.
By 2005, the crane side of
the business was large enough
to justify a separate business,
and N.W. Crane Services was
born. It began operating on its
own property, separate from
the fabrication company from
which it started.
BACKED BY A YEAR-ROUND
A family operation that
has developed since Karlson’s
father ﬁ rst came to Hermis-
ton with his family in 1986, the
companies treat their workers
like family, according to Karl-
son. That approach has “gone a
long way” to inspiring employ-
ees to stay, he said.
Having experienced work-
ers is vital, Karlson said,
because their jobs are no small
feat.
He has nine cranes. The
smallest weighs 40 tons. The
largest tops out at 550 tons.
He recently had this biggest
crane on site at Lamb Weston.
It took 15 semitrailers to move
the crane and a 60-ton support
crane to put it together. Taking
it down, after the job, takes his
staﬀ 5.5 hours of coordinated,
skilled and diﬃ cult work.
“They’re amazing,” Karlson
said of his employees.
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To say it’s been a tough year
to be a business owner would
be an understatement.
The rise and the fall of
COVID-19 cases, risk lev-
els that opened and closed
businesses, new safety proto-
Suicide effects everyone.
cols and a severe labor short-
age has forced many business
owners to rethink and retool
their operations. Some indus-
tries — health care and leisure
and hospitality — have been
hit hard by the pandemic and a
labor shortage. Others, like pro-
fessionals haven’t felt a thing,
economists say.
In response, small busi-
nesses have raised wages,
bumped up beneﬁ ts and raised
prices to oﬀ set these new
costs. A job that paid a mini-
mum wage of $9.25 an hour
in 2016, now pays $12.75 an
hour, according to the Oregon
Bureau of Labor and Indus-
tries. For the past ﬁ ve weeks,
EO Media Group has explored
the eﬀ ect of the labor shortage
on businesses, industries and
workers young and old.
The Oregon Employment
Department reported that the
state regained nearly two out
of three jobs lost in spring 2020
when government mandates
restricted or closed business
operations. A record level of
job openings were reported in
April and June in Oregon and
across the country. Businesses
reported 98,000 job vacancies
at any given time between April
and June.
In addition, there were about
32,500 Oregonians between
April and June who have said
they couldn’t work because of
child care concerns or health
concerns related to COVID-19.
EO Media Group asked
regional economists Christo-
pher Rich and Gail Krume-
nauer to project the economic
outlook for their areas and
Damon Runberg, the state’s
economist, to comment on Ore-
gon’s future economy. Their
answers have been edited for
clarity and brevity.
Q: What is the economic
vision for Oregon going for-
ward now that the initial
impacts of the pandemic-re-
lated shutdowns are behind
us?
A: Krumenauer: I think the
general, common theme is that
we’d all hope to see contin-
ued recovery and/or economic
expansion. As recovery and/or
expansion continues, there are
some longer-term factors that
are going to come into play,
creating headwinds for growth.
Those are lower net in-migra-
tion (the primary way we grow
our workforce is from people
moving here), and ongoing or
increasing baby boomer retire-
ments. And rural areas tend to
have a larger share of workers
at or near retirement age.
Q: Will there be inﬂ ation
or other aﬀ ect on the econ-
omy because of the higher
wages paid to workers in this
tight labor market?
A: Krumenauer: I’d say that
yes, we’ve already been see-
ing higher inﬂ ation in recent
months. It’s due in part to
worker wages rising, in part
to higher demand (this sum-
mer for things like air travel
and accommodations), and
also in part to shortages in sup-
ply chains that are reducing the
ability to produce as many of
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certain goods as people want
(microchips and cars are a good
example of this).
Q: Where is the economy
headed?
A: Runberg: As recov-
ery and/or expansion contin-
ues, there are some longer-term
facts that are going to come
into play, creating headwinds
for growth. Those are lower
net in-migration — the primary
way we grow our workforce
— and ongoing or increas-
ing retirements. According to
the Current Population Sur-
vey, there was a 4.5% increase
in those 65-plus who were not
in the labor force in 2020. That
is a big jump, roughly 2 mil-
lion people age 65 and older are
out of the labor force nation-
wide. The big picture trend
is clear that the retiring of the
baby boomers has begun and it
is one of the factors in our tight
labor market.
Q: Will businesses have
to continue to pivot to stay
ahead of this current labor
crisis?
A: Krumenauer: As for
businesses pivoting, or rather
continuing to adjust their hiring
strategies, yes. I think they’ve
already been incredibly inno-
vative in changing their busi-
ness operations due to COVID,
and in trying to hire more work-
ers when the labor market is so
tight (lots of job openings, rela-
tively low unemployment, and
some workers still facing barri-
ers to taking jobs).
Q: What are some of the
things employers are doing to
encourage workers to return
to the workforce?
A: Krumenauer: For one,
employers have raised wages.
Those wages have risen by
more than 2% in Oregon over
the past year. Three out of ﬁ ve
oﬀ ered health beneﬁ ts, and
half oﬀ ered retirement bene-
ﬁ ts. One out of 10 of employers
oﬀ ering health insurance, and
one out of ﬁ ve oﬀ ering retire-
ment beneﬁ ts, cited worker
hiring and retention advan-
tages related to those oﬀ er-
ings. Half of Oregon’s private
ﬁ rms oﬀ ered paid holidays, and
half oﬀ ered paid vacation days.
One-third oﬀ ered at least one
of the following: ﬂ exible work
schedules, production or per-
formance bonuses, paid pro-
fessional development train-
ing and life insurance. Some
employers have relaxed experi-
ence requirements.
Employers also are layering
help wanted signs with other
eﬀ orts such as referral incen-
tives, signing bonuses, post-
ing with online job boards, and
working with recruiters outside
of their immediate geographi-
cal area.
Eastern Oregon outlook by
Christopher Rich: “The larg-
est uncertainty in Eastern Ore-
gon’s regional outlook is cur-
rently COVID-19. Prior to the
pandemic, the region saw pro-
longed job growth beginning to
slow due to a tight labor mar-
ket. One of the largest concerns
employers voiced was a need to
hire workers and a lack thereof.
Industries at the top of the list
were health care and social
assistance,
manufacturing,
retail trade, leisure and hospi-
tality, and transportation. Total
employment reached a peak of
70,570 jobs in October 2019
and the average annual unem-
ployment rate for the region
had fallen to a low 4.7%. The
January through August aver-
age unemployment rate for the
region was 5.3%.”