Even so, the average business owner “sees a very strong environment right now,” said Oren Klachkin, the lead economist for U.S. industry and regional research at Oxford Economics. “They want to ramp up investment because they want to meet that demand — and they have every reason to invest.”
Jeff Somple, the president of Mack Molding — a contract manufacturer in Arlington, Vt., that creates custom components and full products for other companies — said business had been profitable, booming even. But staffing and nagging supply hurdles have meant his factories’ production capacity can’t keep up. His team has often had to turn down orders as a result.
“Every day, our No. 1 challenge is chasing down the parts that we need to make the products,” whether that’s raw resin or a circuit board from China, and then “scrambling to find enough people” to work on assembly, he said.
The company has raised entry-level pay…
