ALBANY – Capital Region employers will keep hiring in the new year, but they’re not likely to find recruiting relief, according to the results of the Fall 2021 Alaant Hiring Index released on Dec. 15 by Alaant Workforce Solutions, the region’s leading professional workforce services firm. The survey finds that while hiring top talent will remain a major priority for 2022, the new year will also bring the most difficult recruiting environment employers have seen in modern times. 

The last couple of years have been challenging for industry, not only in America but worldwide.  Challenges in meeting demand for products, bottlenecks in the supply chains which bring raw materials and finished goods to our shores and distribution centers, and the countermeasures taken to address the ongoing Pandemic have caused significant delays in getting items both large and small to market.   Some of the most acute shortages have been faced by the automobile industry, where the lack of microchips has idled a large amount of inventory, unable to be delivered for lack of the “brains” to keep the vehicles running smoothly and efficiently.  Some manufacturers have reportedly resorted to delivering vehicles with some features disabled, simply to get them to customers and attempt to meet demand.

As 2021 winds to an end the state of thoroughbred racing in the United States is a decidedly mixed bag. The economics of the industry have seen healthy numbers impelled in part by additional cash injected into the economy at large, the resumption of full racing cards compared to 2020, and increased visibility on television and via the internet. The sales of thoroughbreds at auction have seen robust gains in most categories and increased pricing on yearlings and breeding stock. The combination of a healing economy, inflationary increases in cash in the economy and a workforce increasingly at home with access to daily television and online betting have led to healthy betting handles for most American racetracks.  Lest one get too confident over the health of the sport there are ominous clouds ahead amid evidence of significant criminal malfeasance and ineffective oversight within the industry.