We’re eight days away from the full reopening of the Massachusetts economy and interested in knowing what your plans are in terms of mask and vaccine requirements at your workplace.

 

We're also interested in learning about your hopes and worries for your business or nonprofit for the rest of 2021.

 

Please take a few minutes to respond to a survey that will land in your inbox later today.

 

?Thanks to Eastern Bank for sponsoring the survey and to you for finding time today to answer it.

 

 

Bay State residents will soon need to resume reporting that they’re actively looking for work in order to collect unemployment.

 

The work search requirements will be reinstated starting June 13, two days before Baker plans to end his declared state of emergency.

 

Recipients will not be allowed to cite Covid-19 as a reason they are not looking for work, the state said in a statement.

 

"Refusing work because a UI claimant would rather collect more money in unemployment benefits is not reasonable in any circumstances and is considered fraud,” the state added.

 

Employers may report any furloughed employees who refuse to come back to work by emailing UIReturntowork@detma.org.

 

 

But Gov. Charlie Baker said again yesterday that he will not be following the lead of at least 21 of the country’s 27 GOP governors who are discontinuing those $300 weekly supplemental benefits that some employers believe are keeping some folks from reentering the job market.

 

Baker said the administration will “continue to support the supplemental payments” until Sept. 4, when the federal program expires.

 

Some governors opting out of the $300 boost are using the federal funds to offer one-time bonuses for returning to the workforce.

 

Baker believes the worker shortage will lessen as businesses continue to reopen and vaccinations progress,

 

“If we continue to see our hospital numbers go down, if we continue to see our case counts go down, if we continue to see positive progress on this, and people continue to get vaccinated, then people will probably get a little more comfortable about the idea that, ‘If I go back to work, it will be safe,'” Baker said on GBH yesterday.

 

 

More than two-thirds of small businesses reported having a hard time finding qualified workers, according to a The Wall Street Journal survey.

 

And 75 percent of those surveyed said they’re looking to grow head count over the next year, not just return to pre-pandemic levels.

 

One such business is Baramor in Newton Centre. 

 

Owner Arpit Patel tells Greg Ryan at the BBJ he’s pumped about the lifting of restrictions and would like to once again keep the restaurant open until 1 a.m. every night, if he can hire enough servers and kitchen staff.

 

For Patel, that’s a big “if,” writes Ryan.

 

“I get no job applications. People aren’t applying, is the problem,” Patel said. “We’ve hired as many people as we can, and we’re still looking to add five to 10 more people.”

 

I'm hearing the same thing from so many of our business owners.

 
 

 

Legislation to fix a staggering spike in unemployment taxes and offer COVID-19 emergency sick leave was sent to Gov. Charlie Baker desk yesterday.

 

State Senators unanimously approved a bill also unanimously approved this week by the House that spreads solvency fund payments over 20 years.

 

Sen. Diana DiZoglio attempted to tack on amendments to address the soon-to-expire to-go cocktail rules and a cap on third-party meal delivery fees, but she was ruled out of order, according to Chris Lisinski at State House News.

 

DiZoglio said her colleagues were "out of touch" in a "Beacon Hill bubble" and argued that lawmakers were listening to package store lobbyists rather than small business owners.

 

 

Are you one of those folks who keeps thinking, there has to be a ceiling to how much demand there’s going to be for lab space.

 

And you may be right. But this story from Bisnow may be reason to think that ceiling just got a little higher.

 

 

A nationally recognized inclusive recreational program that brings children with and without disabilities together to provide opportunities for social and motor development, will be relocating to Newton this summer. 

 

UMass Boston’s Camp Shriver will move to the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst due to construction activity on the Boston campus.

  

Over 100 campers will utilize the athletic fields, athletic center and classrooms on the Mount Ida Campus for basketball, soccer, football, lacrosse, tennis, creative activities, arts and crafts, and more. Campers receive free transportation from designated locations in Boston and free breakfast, lunch, snacks and camp gear. 

 

 

 

 

 

The state Senate begins debate on the fiscal 2022 budget next week. Among the items we always watch closely are proposals that would increase revenue dedicated to local transportation improvements and public transit.

 

One budget amendment would increase fees on Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft to align Massachusetts with cities and states across the country.

 

Massachusetts’ current flat fee of $.20 is far below cities like New York ($2.75 per ride) and Chicago ($1.25 for a single ride, up to $3 in the downtown zone) has not been updated since 2016. This amendment would raise the Massachusetts fees to $.40 per shared ride, $1.20 per single ride, and $2.20 per luxury ride.

 

Ask your senator to support of Amendment 23 here.

 
 

 

A watchdog group launched an advertising campaign this week urging major corporations to end their membership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over lobbying against voting rights legislation, the Hill reports.

 

Accountable.US, says the U.S. Chamber has lobbied against the For the People Act, voting rights legislation that has passed the House and is stalled in the Senate.

 

Please note: We're not affiliated with the U.S Chamber. The Newton-Needham Regional Chamber is not a member of the U.S. Chamber.

 

In fact, we are not affiliated with any other chamber of commerce, nationally or locally.

 

 

The latest and possibly best COVID-19 test also enjoys playing frisbee.

 

A growing body of research by scientists and dog trainers from the U.S. to Jerusalem suggests that dogs can use their powerful sense of smell to detect COVID-19 infections, including in people without symptoms, reports the Wall Street Journal.

 

A Florida hospital already has one of the four-legged testers “on staff."

 

Of course, they’ve been training dogs to detect drugs, explosives and bedbugs for years.

 

But “this is the first time that dogs are able to detect a viral disease in humans,” said Dominique Grandjean, a professor at the National Veterinary School in France and one of the first researchers to evaluate the potential of COVID-sniffing canines.

 

Unlike nasal swab tests, which require waiting at least 15 minutes for a result—dogs can screen 250 to 300 people a day, according to the World Health Organization.

 

Any dog can theoretically be trained in a few weeks, researchers say.