Friday, September 03, 2021
I wrote about this last month. These two have always been twinned, the virus and the economy, so you have to solve the health issue first. When we were on lockdown obviously the whole economy was shut down. Since the beginning of 2021 there have been worker shortages in in the service and retail sectors. Now with Delta at over 160k/day the worker shortage is going to be exacerbated. You finally get your shop fully staffed and then Bob your trucker gets sick and Mary on the register gets sick. Those 1M jobs added in July are now effectively shrunk and Bob and Mary aren’t getting full paychecks. The jobs report is due out momentarily and it has been predicted to be bad. Whatever the gains, if there are any—halve them.