By Mark Shaw

The 2022 outlook for business is 100 percent  about cybersecurity insurance. The best thing you can do for your business has nothing to do with buying technology, it’s about protecting your existing investment in exactly what you own right now. 

How do you do that? By purchasing a cyber insurance plan for your business. 

In doing so, you may ask any number of questions like:

Why a small business like yours with so little a hacker might find valuable would need an insurance policy to cover your technology? 

Why your IT technology firm wouldn’t be enough to help you?

Why your cybersecurity firm who works with your internal or external IT department isn’t enough to protect you?  

These are great questions, and the answers are simple. 

Your cyber and IT staff can’t protect your business all the time. Something will happen beyond everyone’s control and their insurance won’t cover you, and you will be stuck in a bad situation. 

Every day we see more and more impact from cyber security. The fallout from major attacks like the Microsoft Exchange, SolarWinds, Kaseya just to name three that are recent are having major ripple effects throughout the entire technology world.

By Dennis Brobston

One of our beloved presidents, Abraham Lincoln, once said “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” That is our belief at Saratoga Economic Development Corp. (SEDC). 

Creating Saratoga County’s economic development future has been our mission for over 43 years of existence. Working with SEDC to create our economic future are many partners: Saratoga County and local governments, Saratoga County businesses large and small, our Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs), universities and colleges and our K-12 school districts, to name a few. Over the last decade, SEDC and our stakeholders helped to create over 1,700 new jobs with over $170 million in payroll while retaining over 2,050 existing jobs at Saratoga County companies.

The year 2021 was another strange year as we all continued to adapt thru the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Like 2020, we were thrust into uncharted waters for supporting our existing businesses in Saratoga County while marketing our region for new and exciting companies looking for fertile ground to grow their businesses. And like 2020, this past year of 2021 proved to be another banner year delivering over $110 million in new investment while creating 182 new jobs and over $11.5 million in payroll. 

Over the last two years, we have supported $232 million of investment creating over 629 jobs with over $38 million in new payroll while retaining 730 existing jobs. The years 2020 and 2021 are the first back-to-back years with more than $100 million investment in our 43-year history. We are thankful for all of the projects that allowed us to excel during this pandemic.

Promoting Saratoga County’s sites and buildings to site selectors across the country and throughout Europe will continue in 2022. Our efforts to create more product (pre-zoned sites and buildings) continue as we work with our municipalities eyeing this type of growth. “On spec” flex space is being built regularly in Saratoga County and the support of the Saratoga County IDA and the Town of Clifton Park IDA is vital to that continuing. 

By Stephen Kyne, CFP

Who would have thought that we’d be starting the third year of life in a pandemic? Certainly it has had a huge impact on the economy in the last two years, and we all look forward to its influence waning. As we enter 2022, we’d like to offer our thoughts about how we see the year playing out for the economy.

In order to look ahead, we must first take stock of where we’ve been. 2021 was a fairly volatile year for the economy. Depending on which polls you read, the public was often equally (or more) concerned with the economy than it was with the ongoing pandemic. Given many of the leading economic indicators, it’s easy to understand why. 

Inflation has been a primary concern. In 2020, as a response to the near-total shutdown of our economy, the government flooded the economy with trillions of dollars. In a typical year, according to the Federal Reserve, the money in circulation grows by about 6 percent. 

In 2020, the money in circulation grew by about 30 percent. Meanwhile, supply chain issues, which persist today, meant that in-demand goods were hard to come by. The recipe for inflation is simply too many dollars chasing too few goods. We certainly had both in spades. As a result, inflation in 2021 ran about 7 percent – the highest in forty years, according to the Department of Labor. 

For much of the year, the Federal Reserve insisted that the majority of the increase in inflation was “transitory”; a position with which we disagreed. While we think the inflation picture will improve in the years to come, we think it will be several years before we see the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. Prepare for another year of increasing prices. 

The employment landscape has been a hot topic in the past year, with what has been dubbed the “Great Resignation.” This revolves around the notion that there is an employment revolution and realignment, whereby workers are quitting their jobs en masse to pursue better opportunities, often involving working from home. According to ZipRecruiter, nearly 60 percent of workers indicate they would like a job that allows them to work from home, but only 10 percent of jobs offer than option and that number is likely to shrink as we enter post-pandemic life. The office is not dead.

By Rene A. Walrath

In 2022, hiring, recruiting, and retaining talent will continue to rapidly transform. The unemployment rates are continuing to rise and the Great Resignation will continue on in this upcoming year. This leads us to ask what will recruiting top talent look like this year?

The Great Resignation is caused by people quitting their jobs in large amounts due to low wages, poor benefits, a lack of work-life balance, and overall unhappiness at their current role. These employees are currently trying to find a job that is a better career fit for them and offers a better balance. 

Retaining talent and recruiting in 2022 will be centered around responding to these changes in the employee or candidate’s expectations due to the pandemic. 

The beginning of this pandemic forced many employees to work from home as offices shut down, which in turn caused the realization of how productive employees can be from home. Some of these employees enjoyed the remote work and the extra time that came with working from home. 

Employees now are pushing for hybrid and remote jobs where they have the ability to add flexibility into their schedule. Companies will continue to adapt to these candidate expectations in order to retain employees during a historic labor shortage by offering a workplace that fosters a better work life balance. 

COVID-19 revealed to employers how important mental health is for everyone. During a time where there is a global talent shortage—the Great Resignation—employers will continue to attract top quality candidates through increasing their workforce’s health and fostering a healthy work environment both physically and mentally. 

By Doug Ford

There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in what lies ahead as we embark on 2022 however, when you look at the construction and the building materials industry a few things are “for sure.” The broken supply chain, lack of available workers and fallout from COVID are all factors that will continue to challenge us.

Like many industries, the supply chain for building materials and related products is going through a very difficult period in both domestic and foreign products. Experts believe the crisis will extend beyond 2022 with no immediate relief in sight. 

Current delivery delays can extend the build time on an average single-family home by three-plus months and will get worse as we enter the winter season here in the Northeast. This is extremely unfortunate since there is a lot of interest in new homes and a shortage of available homes on the market. 

The fallout from lack of product and the demands on housing are in part due to the influx of millennials entering the market. This has caused a significant increase in home pricing which adds another level of complexity. Interest rates remain low, but all other trends impacting the real estate market allow the advantage to remain with the sellers.

The lack of labor in the construction industry has been growing for decades and is now competing with many other segments for workers. A recent statistic reported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce construction index stated that 92 percent of contractors have reported difficulty finding workers and of those, 42 percent have turned down work as a result. 

Simply put, many people aren’t aware of career opportunities in the trades. This is a topic that the Saratoga Builders Association in conjunction with many local partners have been addressing for the past three years. Until recently, schools have focused on college as the primary pathway for most students. 

By Janet Besheer

The year 2021 was a roller coaster in area real estate year with the best annual existing home sales numbers since 2006. 

Low inventory and high demand, along with very low interest rates, had properties flying off the page all year long. Median prices were at all time highs.

Experts see the sellers’ market continuing into 2022 and with a less wild seller’s market than during 2021. Home sales prices will not advance at the same pace we saw in 2021, however, the lack of supply will mean prices will continue to grow.

It is predicted that mortgage interest rates will rise at least three times during 2022. The 30-year fixed rate, currently averaging 3.3 percent, will hit closer to 3.7 percent by the end of this year. This will affect the buying power of certain buyers.

In November, the median sales price in the Capital Region jumped to $397,700 which was an increase of more than 12 percent over the median price of $330,000 in 2020. Sales prices rose for 19 months in a row across New York state. 

Home prices are predicted to continue to rise in 2022, up to 5-12 percent in most markets. Affordability will be a challenge in 2022 with home buyers grappling with higher monthly costs due to rising prices and mortgage rates.

Inventory woes will continue in 2022. In 2021 inventory was down 23 percent compared to 2020. Typical “days on market” was only 23 days and homes sold at 99.2 percent of the original list prices. Months’ supply of inventory fell to 2.8 months in November 2021—a 34.9 percent drop from 4.3 months of supply in November 2020. (A balanced market is considered to have 6-6.5 month supply). As a result, buyers in every price range were frustrated by not finding a home or by being outbid in multiple offer scenarios.