UniFirst earns national honor

Keith Lawrence, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.
·2 min read

Dec. 11—UniFirst's distribution center in Owensboro got some big news this week.

It received the Voluntary Protection Program Star certification from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — OSHA's highest recognition for occupational safety and health.

The company is a "North American leader in the supply and servicing of uniforms, workwear, and facility service products for businesses."

The Owensboro center was one of 20 sites in Kentucky to earn the status.

—Retailers are seeing a strong finish to 2021.

The NPD Group reported that "sales revenue for discretionary general merchandise" has already reached the total amount spent in 2019 and is at 98% of what was spent last year.

That's despite the report saying that while Thanksgiving week sales were up 14% over last year, they were still 5% below 2019.

The National Retail Federation has predicted that holiday sales will be up between 8.5% and 10.5% during November and December.

—AAA said this week that gas prices are dropping because "fears of a possible COVID-19 global economic slowdown pushed oil prices into the mid $60s per barrel range, which hasn't been seen since August."

It added, "Also helping to ease oil prices was the decision by OPEC and its oil-producing allies not to cut production."

The report said that the average price of a gallon of gas was $2.841 in Owensboro this week, the cheapest among the five west-central Kentucky cities surveyed — Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, Louisville, Owensboro and Paducah.

The lowest price on Thursday was $2.63 a gallon here.

—Kentucky's economy "continues to make steady progress toward a recovery from the pandemic, but it is becoming increasingly clear that a full return to 'normal' is unlikely to happen anytime soon," Ashli Watts, president of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, said this week.

The report said that while workers are slowly returning to the labor force, they are not returning quickly enough to fill the job openings available.

And it said that "job turnover is high as workers see opportunities to find higher paying jobs."

Kentucky has recovered or replaced 76% of the jobs lost during the pandemic, the report said.

270-691-7301 klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com