The Week Staff

‘Omicron absenteeism’ poses a new threat to business.

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Widespread “Omicron absenteeism” poses a new threat to the country’s economic recovery, said Shawn Donnan in Bloomberg. An estimated 5 million workers were forced to quarantine at home last week, thanks to the highly transmissible Omicron variant. The number of workers who called in sick decimated the airline industry around the holidays, and it’s now “becoming a reality in factories, grocery stores, and ports.” Restaurants like the Ledo Pizza chain in the Washington, D.C., area have had to close their doors or operate fewer hours to account for staff shortages, while “160 longshoremen at West Coast ports tested positive” in a single day last week, straining the supply chains. Even if the economic hit is “temporary, as most anticipate, it could slow a fragile rebound.”

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