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New workforce data and industry leaders in Central Massachusetts suggest any inkling that people wouldn’t travel or meet at the same rates as they did before COVID appears to be unfounded.

The White Room has made a post-COVID comeback over the past year and is a nexus of cultural and social life in Worcester.

The machines in here don’t look like the old science classrooms or even the classrooms we see in movies. Instead, it’s sterile and more like a command center. These machines aren’t for experimentation; they’re to see if your experiment works.

BIPOC-owned startups seeking out larger investments have come up short, in large part because the deck is stacked against them.

TidePool Bookshop opened in September 2020 after months of delays thanks to COVID-19. Now, two years later, they have a busy store with a growing number of events and an expanding catalog of books.

A legal battle is being fought between UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Health over millions of dollars from UMass Memorial’s 2019 sale of its stake in Shields Health Solutions to Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.

From 2010 to 2020, the population of Central Massachusetts grew 8.1%, outpacing both the state and national averages, while closing in on nearly 1.3 million people throughout Worcester County and the MetroWest region. While all that change has caused some headaches, like a lack of affordable housing, it has created plenty of opportunities.

Since employers are struggling to find skilled labor, the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce this year published a study focusing on workforce growth barriers, especially those related to geography, skills, and work-life balance.

It’s called job abandonment, and it happens more often in shift work. In addition to causing concern for their welfare, from an HR standpoint, it calls for careful handling in case of litigation.

The coronavirus pandemic brought about an immediate shift to working from home, and it was fantastic. That said, over the longer term, professionals will suffer from not spending most of their time in an office.