Spring 2021 – News Beat

ERA ELECTS NEW OFFICERS FOR 2021-2023 YEAR TERM

ERA has announced that its board of directors elected new national officers for the 2021-2023 term during its March 4, 2021, meeting. They are: chairman of the board – Chuck Tanzola, CPMR, of the Fusion Sourcing Group; president – John O’Brien, CPMR, of Coakley, Boyd and Abbett; senior vice president / fiscal and legal – Tom Griffin, CPMR, of Catalyst Unity Solutions; senior vice president / membership – David Fitzgerald of WESCO Sales Group Inc.; senior vice president / education – Ellen Coan, CPMR, of C C Electro Sales Inc.; senior vice president / industry – Cameron English, CPMR, of English Technical Sales Southwest; and senior vice president at large – Kingsland Coombs, CPMR, CSP, of Control Sales Inc.

Coan and Coombs are new members of the association’s executive committee. Tanzola succeeds the outgoing chairman, Dave Norris of Norris and Associates, who concluded eight years as a national officer and served for nine years as the national vice president of the Components Group.

The continuing executive committee members are senior vice president / manufacturers – Ken Bellero of Schaffner EMC Inc.; senior vice president / distributors – Craig Sanderson of Sager Electronics; and ERA CEO Walter Tobin, who serves as an ex officio member.

ERA RELEASES NEW WHITE PAPER

ERA periodically develops, co-develops and publishes industry white papers and forms based on its own research and/or cooperative studies conducted with other organizations, for the benefit of its members and the electronics industry.

A new white paper, “Staying on Course – Tips for More Effective Manufacturer/Representative Quarterly Meetings,” by John Simari, Special Consultant to ERA, is now available on the ERA website. ERA members can view/download a PDF of the white paper at https://era.org/era-publications/era-white-papers-industry-standards/ (member login information is required).

GLOBAL CHIP SHORTAGE EXPECTED TO LAST UNTIL 2023

In April, top executives from several leading chipmakers warned that global chip shortages will likely drag on for the next couple of years. Global chip shortages fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic supply chain crunch and the soaring demand for products such as laptops and mobile devices that can facilitate remote work have caused problems in a number of industries, but it’s automakers and medical equipment manufacturers that have been the most visibly affected. A number of vehicle manufacturing plants around the world are currently sitting idle for lack of enough chips, according to a recent SiliconANGLE Media Inc. report.

EDS 2021 REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN

ECIA, ERA and GEDA, the co-sponsors of the EDS Leadership Summit, announced that registration is now open for EDS 2021, which will be held at the Mirage Las Vegas, Monday, Aug. 30 – Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. For details about the upcoming event, visit edssummit.com.

IOT CONNECTIONS TO REACH 23.6 BILLION BY 2026

Internet of things (IoT) connections are expected to reach 23.6 billion in the next five years, according to new data from ABI Research. However, security issues remain a challenge and looming security gaps offer a tremendous revenue potential for players in IoT security, the Electronics360 reported. While IoT security revenue does not always correlate with the amount of IoT connections, some markets are expected to experience disproportional revenue.

WORLDWIDE IT SPENDING TO REACH $4.1 TRILLION IN 2021

Worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.1 trillion in 2021, an increase of 8.4 percent from 2020, according to the latest forecast by Gartner Inc. All IT spending segments are forecast to have positive growth through 2022. The highest growth is expected to come from devices (14 percent) and enterprise software (10.8 percent) as organizations shift their focus to providing a more comfortable, innovative and productive environment for their workforce.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS TO 6% IN MARCH 2020

The unemployment rate edged down to 6 percent in March 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The rate dropped considerably from its recent high in April 2020 but is 2.5 percentage points higher than before the pandemic in February 2020. For those with a bachelor’s degree and higher, the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent in March 2021, down from a high of 8.4 percent in April 2020. For those without a high school diploma, the unemployment rate was 8.2 percent in March 2021, down from a high of 21 percent in April 2020. This trend continued into April when initial unemployment claims totaled 547,000 for the week ending April 17, the lowest since the week of March 14, 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.