Worker shortage? Blame Covid

 

Last week, a friend sent me a link to a paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper’s summary makes some important points about the effects of Covid on the US labor supply:

·        …Covid-19 illnesses persistently reduce labor supply.

·        …workers with week-long Covid-19 work absences are 7 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force one year later compared to otherwise-similar workers who do not miss a week of work for health reasons.

·        Covid-19 illnesses have reduced the U.S. labor force by approximately 500,000 people (0.2 percent of adults).

·        (Our numbers) imply an average forgone earnings per Covid-19 absence of at least $9,000, about 90 percent of which reflects lost labor supply beyond the initial absence week (i.e. it seems that the great majority of Covid absences lasted well over one week. In fact, it seems a lot of them are a month or longer. This isn’t too surprising, since the quarantine period was supposed to be 14 days for most of the pandemic, and if a patient was hospitalized, they probably couldn’t return to work after 14 days – nor would their workmates want them to). Of course, most workers aren’t likely to be paid beyond 1-2 weeks of illness, if they’re paid at all).

The bottom line is that Covid absences had a big impact on both workers and employers. Of course, most workers aren’t likely to be paid beyond 1-2 weeks of illness, if they’re paid at all. There was lots of talk at the beginning of the pandemic about why paying workers for their sick time wouldn’t just be the right thing to do, but it would reduce the spread of Covid, since in that case, workers wouldn’t feel compelled to return to work before they were completely well.

Did this happen, you ask? Surely you jest…

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, September 11.

Month	Deaths reported during month/year	Avg. deaths per day during month/year	Deaths as percentage of previous month/year
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April 2020	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May 2020	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June 2020	23,925	798	57%
Month of July 2020	26,649	860	111%
Month of August 2020	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept. 2020	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct. 2020	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov. 2020	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec. 2020	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb. 2021	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March 2021	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April 2021	24,323	811	64%
Month of May 2021	19,843	661	82%
Month of June 2021	10,544	351	53%
Month of July 2021	8,833	287	84%
Month of August 2021	31,160	1,005	351%
Month of Sept. 2021	56,687	1,890	182%
Month of Oct. 2021	49,992	1,613	88%
Month of Nov. 2021	38,364	1,279	77%
Month of Dec. 2021	41,452	1,337	108%
Total 2021	492,756	1,350	158%
Month of Jan. 2022	65,855	2,124	159%
Month of Feb. 2022	63,451	2,266	96%
Month of March 2022	31,427	1,014	50%
Month of April 2022	13,297	443	42%
Month of May 2022	11,474	370	86%
Month of June 2022	11,109	370	97%
Month of July 2022	11,903	384	107%
Month of August 2022	16,199	540	136%
Total Pandemic so far	1,075,955	1,164

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday:          1,075,955

Average daily deaths last seven days: 430

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 545

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.3%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 97,139,236             

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 512,959 (73,280/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 614,482 (87,783/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.5% (0.6% last week)

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.