Leominster

The New England Newspaper & Press Association has given nine journalism awards to Worcester Business Journal at part of the 2021 Better Newspaper Competition, honoring stories on the legacy of slavery in Central Massachusetts, housing discrimination in Worcester, and attempts to narrow racial and gender pay gaps.

Heywood Healthcare, one of the last independent community healthcare systems in Central Massachusetts, has agreed in principle to join the UMass Memorial Health system, seeking to become part of the network with facilities in Worcester, Marlborough, Leominster, Clinton and Southbridge.

The North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce announced Monday its economic development affiliate, the North Central Massachusetts Development Corp., is launching a new small business loan program. 

Worcester Business Journal began listing the most influential people in the Central Massachusetts economy in 2013, using various iterations of the concept to arrive at the Power 50, which started in 2018.

The Power 50 may not necessarily hold the most power in the region, but they are the people who most effectively wielded their power to have an outsized influence on the economy and the community within the last year.

The labor force in the Greater Worcester metropolitan area continued to grow in March, with the unemployment rate in the region dropping to 3.9%.

The move applies to all Reliant locations, which span across Worcester County and the MetroWest area. The move comes in the wake of staffing shortages at the group, a problem augmented across the healthcare industry by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bruce Platzman, the co-founder and CEO of Leominster-based furniture manufacturer AIS, will step down from his CEO role in June.

Now, in its seventh year, the Manufacturing Excellence Awards seeks to accentuate the top performers in a highly complex and varied industry.

Hometown Financial Group, Inc., the holding company for bankHometown in Oxford, plans to acquire Randolph Bancorp, Inc. the Quincy-based holding company of Envision Bank, for $146.5 million.