What a difference a year makes: Trends born of the pandemic might endure
May 11, 2021 Operators talk about changes they made, and how they’ll affect business forever.
Fransmart’s Rise Southern Biscuits & Righteous Chicken developed an app and installed kiosks and heated food lockers at its stores so people could place orders online and come in minutes later to pick up their food. For more than a year, restaurants have faced huge challenges and changes due to COVID-19. Now, as customers gather in restaurants again and the industry slowly emerges from the crisis, experts are looking at trends developed during the pandemic that have staying power.
By State House News Service
A little over a month after Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law shoring up the unemployment system and reducing the premium increases facing employers to fund jobless benefits, lawmakers and administration officials are once again looking for a way to provide businesses relief from spiking costs.
The law Baker signed on April 1 authorized $7 billion in borrowing to stabilize the state s unemployment insurance trust fund, strained by a flood of joblessness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and limited the average rate hike to 18.5 percent instead of the nearly 60 percent increase employers would otherwise have to pay.
Some businesses soon found they were nonetheless facing dramatic increases in their unemployment tax payments, as one component of their UI costs, known as the solvency assessments, jumped from a rate of 0.58 percent in 2020 to 9.23 percent in 2021, surprising many.
Holdup on Massachusetts unemployment insurance relief quest appears to be federal guidance
Updated May 06, 2021;
By Katie Lannan | State House News Service
A little over a month after Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law shoring up the unemployment system and reducing the premium increases facing employers to fund jobless benefits, lawmakers and administration officials are once again looking for a way to provide businesses relief from spiking costs.
The law Baker signed on April 1 authorized $7 billion in borrowing to stabilize the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, strained by a flood of joblessness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and limited the average rate hike to 18.5 percent instead of the nearly 60 percent increase employers would otherwise have to pay.