Page 17 - BusinessWest January 9, 2023

“Before COVID hit, we would never let an employee work from home; from a security perspective, from a collaborative perspective, it just wouldn’t work. Two weeks into the pandemic,
we had 80%
of workforce working from home without a hitch.”
pricing and courses accordingly; there is a trend in higher educa- tion to look for shorter types of certificates to help max the creden- tialing needs of the workforce. I expect we’ll see that. But also, the workforce issues are providing a lot of opportunities for institutions to partner with businesses to address some of these workforce issues, and I expect that we’ll see more collaborations and partner- ships between higher-ed institutions and businesses to address some of these workforce challenges.”
Senecal: “I see two things. One is supply chain; I think the pressure seems to be coming off, and if that trend continues, that will have
a really positive effect on the economy. Two, I think higher energy prices are not going to go away. With the war in Ukraine and Rus- sian energy and what is being supplied to Europe and all ... many people don’t think it impacts us. I think it will have a huge impact going into 2023. When you look at the supply of energy in Europe, they have enough to get through the winter to sustain themselves. What they don’t have is the ability to replenish those supplies by next winter, and I think Russia knows this, and I think their strategy is to put a huge amount of pressure on to get to next year, because when you get to next winter, there’s not going to be any energy-sup- ply reserves, and that’s going to have a huge impact worldwide on energy supplies, and that trickles throughout the economy.”
Falcone: I very much agree with Tom. The overall political and economic environment created by that war has affected our busi- ness dramatically, whether it’s fuel costs, energy costs that directly impact the supply chain and lead to inflation, or interest rates, because the overall cost of carrying our inventory is higher, and the cost of the product we’re procuring is higher. So with that, our over- all cost of business has increased.”
Kasa: “I agree with John. In manufacturing, our supply chain has really been impacted by this war; we’re not able to get material as we did some time ago, and those costs continue to rise. Being in manufacturing, we’re held to long-term agreements, master agree-
Spiros Hatiras says the “truly outrageous” cost of agency nurses is one of the many stern challenges facing all hospitals today.
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