Gazette Daily News Podcast, November 23

Soak in that temperature increase, we don't know how long this will last. According to the National Weather Service it will be increasingly cloudy during the day Wednesday with a high near 55 degrees. Commuters may be greeted by some patchy fog before 9 a.m. in the Cedar Rapids area. On Wednesday night it will be mostly cloudy with a low of around 39 degrees.

Iowa’s economy is in recession and losses in its workforce will be exceptionally difficult to recoup because older Iowans who are retiring are not being replaced by younger or new residents, a state economist said Tuesday.

While the size of Iowa’s workforce has continued to climb steadily throughout 2022, the most recent number of Iowans working still lags behind October 2019 and behind its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.

Peter Orazem, a professor of labor economics at Iowa State University, discussed the state’s economy and workforce issues Tuesday while recording this weekend’s episode of “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.

Iowa has the ninth-highest share of residents who were born in the state, Orazem said, meaning Iowa gets a proportionately small share of its population from other states or countries.

“If you look at the sources of replacement labor in Iowa, it’s really hard to come up with another one other than immigration, which has been the buffer for the Iowa labor force for many years,” Orazem said.

Speaking of PBS, you won’t be hearing any of their fundraising pitches for a while.

An apparent cybersecurity breach has caused Iowa PBS to cancel the remainder of its annual fall fundraising pledge drive.

An Iowa PBS spokeswoman Tuesday confirmed the issue, which has not impacted the station’s ability to broadcast programming.

“In the early hours of Sunday morning, Iowa PBS became aware of suspicious activity on our network systems. We swiftly brought in systems experts to help us identify the issue,” Iowa PBS spokeswoman Susan Ramsey said in a statement.

The incident led Iowa PBS Friends Foundation, the station’s governing body, to cancel the remainder of the Fall Festival, which is the station’s pledge drive. That decision likely will mean a significant reduction in donations to the station; roughly half the station’s annual revenue comes from contributions and grants, according to a recent state analysis.

“While this will mean a considerable loss of donor revenue in this period, we believe this is in the best interest of the Iowans we serve,” the statement said.

The College Community School District is increasing its starting salary for bus drivers to $23 an hour, a $2 per hour increase, in an effort to recruit and retain more drivers.

New hires also will receive a $500 sign-on bonus as just one recent initiative the district has launched in response to the national bus driver shortage, according to a news release Tuesday. All College Community employees who recruit a bus driver, van driver or bus aide to join the transportation department also receive a new recruitment bonus.

School districts across the nation are facing a shortage of school bus drivers.

During the summer of 2020, the Cedar Rapids Community School District lost a fifth of its school bus drivers because of COVID-19. In August, the Cedar Rapids district said it was facing challenging bus driver shortages. The district implemented several short and long-term strategies to close the staffing shortage gap, including combining routes and having mechanics trained and driving buses.