Dig even deeper into the biggest stories of the last seven days with the Beacon’s weekly podcast.
This week: You don’t have to look very hard to see signs, literally, of the Flathead Valley’s labor shortage, with businesses desperately seeking help, particularly in the service industry as a busy summer season approaches. The director of the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Pat Barkey, is our guest to talk why there is a scarcity of workers, what could be done to fix it, and why things like immigration could be having an outsized impact on the problem. You can read more of Pat’s thoughts and a ton more on the labor crisis in Maggie Dresser’s excellent Flathead Beacon cover story.
Later in the show, host Andy Viano runs through the biggest stories from the last seven days, including an update on Flathead County’s slowing vaccine demand, another challenge to an environmental standard on Lake Koocanusa, and a primer on the closely watched local school board elections.
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The music in this episode is “Thinking Music” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.