As COVID-19 vaccine deadline passes, most Washington state and Seattle workers have gotten their shots
As the formal deadline for Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate came and went Monday, the vast majority of state and Seattle employees subject to the orders had gotten vaccinated. That includes 92% of the 62,000 state workers subject to Inslee’s order to get fully vaccinated by Oct. 18. The governor’s mandate also applied to school employees, as well as hundreds of thousands of health care workers. Continue reading at The Seattle Times. (Ted S. Warren)
The Economic Rebound Is Still Waiting for Workers
Fall was meant to mark the beginning of the end of the labor shortage that has held back the nation’s economic recovery. Expanded unemployment benefits were ending. Schools were reopening, freeing up many caregivers. Surely, economists and business owners reasoned, a flood of workers would follow. Instead, the labor force shrank in September. There are five million fewer people working than before the pandemic began, and three million fewer even looking for work. Continue reading at The New York Times. (Kendrick Brinson)
Some Western cities use trash cleanup to combat homelessness
At her lowest, Resheemah “RoRo” White was living in a tent or sleeping on park benches or beneath an underpass in Oakland, California, fearful that her life had bottomed out and she would never make it back. White had been laid off from her warehouse job at the Port of Oakland, her mother had died, and she could no longer afford an apartment. “I was just a victim of circumstances and that’s why I ended up homeless,” she said in an interview with Stateline. Continue reading at Stateline. (Matt M. McKnight)
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