Amid rising unemployment during the pandemic, another crucial issue in the labor market has been largely overlooked: workers are calling in record numbers this year.
Whether they are Covid-19 themselves, are worried about getting it, or care about someone who already has it, the number of workers who lost days at work has doubled in the pandemic.
Moreover, unlike the unemployment rate, which has fallen steadily since its peak in April, the absenteeism rate – as it is called by economists – has remained stubbornly high. Close 1.8 million workers were absent in November due to the disease, almost equal to the record 2 million set in April, according to the Department of Labor.
Sidelined by Sickness
The record number of US workers was missing due to the disease
Source: US Department of Labor
These lost work days are affecting an economic recovery that is progressing in crisis conditions and has largely started in the last few months. While some indicators have improved significantly, others like retail sales, spending and consumer spending have weakened as the pandemic erupts and local governments impose new restrictions on business and travel.
Michael Gapen, chief US economist at Barclays Plc, said the vaccine could begin to reduce absenteeism by the second quarter. Until then, he said, failed work leads to supply chain disruptions.
Absenteeism “could lead to shortages, could lead to higher prices and lower production,” Gapen said.
With about 1.5 million new cases a week and record deaths, employee absenteeism may remain high for a period of time, especially in early 2021 before vaccines are widely distributed and launched in the US. moving slower than government officials expected.
Factory workers
While the Department of Labor’s data track people currently in the workforce who are ill, a separate survey by the Census Bureau captures an even broader view of the challenge. His latest household impulse survey – based on answers in late November and early December – estimates that more than 11 million people did not work because of the virus. The figures also include those who refrained from working because they were worried about the infection or the spread of the virus and those who care for someone with symptoms.
Read more: Covid Surge the sides of health care workers when they are most needed
The effects of missing workers are mainly concentrated in the manufacturing industry. Absenteeism, combined with short-term shutdowns to sanitize facilities and difficulties in returning and hiring workers, limits the sector’s growth potential, according to Timothy Fiore, chair of the Institute for Manufacturing’s Institute for Manufacturing Research.
The range of activity of the factory grew at a slower pace in November, with the employment component returning to a level that indicates contraction.
“It’s not a lack of work,” Fiore said in a recent call with reporters, noting absenteeism, especially for roles with low or medium skills. “It’s a shortage of people.”
In addition to the temporarily absent workers, the manufacturing sector has 525,000 jobs, the most in the 2000 workforce.
Car factories feel the effects. General Motors Co. put employees with white collars at the production level in August to cope with high absenteeism amid strong demand. The financial director of Volkswagen AG, Frank Witter, has He said high levels of missing staff had left the carmaker “sometimes struggling to get all the cars built for customer orders”.
U.S. companies have reported that growing cases have precipitated plant closures and fears of infections, adding to workforce challenges, including absenteeism and attrition, according to the latest summary of economic conditions in the Beige Book Federal Reserve. On December 2, manufacturers in the Chicago area used overtime to make up for staff shortages said the report.
Sick leave
As for office workers, 90% of professionals said before the pandemic that they will sometimes go to work sick, according to a 2019 study conducted by the personnel company Accountemps. Covid changed the conversation and several employees stay at home to protect themselves and others.
Family response to the first coronavirus earlier this year made the decision to stay home easier for some Americans allowing two weeks of paid sick leave for certain employees The law also allows leave for those who cannot work because they have to take care of a child.
The latest stimulus bill, signed by President Donald Trump on December 27, includes an extension of the act to March 31, but makes paid leave voluntary for employers, rather than mandatory, as it was in the first iteration. This can continue the tendency of workers to stay at home, depending on how many employers choose to take leave.
However, the act excludes essential workers, which means that those employed in facilities such as meat packing plants cannot benefit from the policy. This, in turn, can lead to outbreaks in the workplace and further disrupt production.
Read more: The pandemic begins to hit US meat plants again
With fewer employees at work, slaughter rates at US meat factories fell in the third quarter. Tyson Foods Inc. CEO Dean Banks said in a recent earnings call that absenteeism “increased the cost and complexity of our operations” and that the company expects it to continue in 2021.
– With the assistance of Henry Ren and Julia Fanzeres