[MNJohnnie]

I work for a food company in logistics

The basic problem is a country wide labor shortage. Covid has gotten to be an excuse to not show up when ever someone wants time off.

When you short people goods do not get produced, freight does not get loaded/unloaded. Basically it the same problem of putting a kink in a garden hose.

[EC Washington]

Plus you don’t have people to pick and pack orders - especially in cold storage - most freezer warehouses have 50% less people per shift than they need to load trucks.

[SaxxonWoods]

Yep, you got it right. Farmers are doing their part, suppliers aren’t.

[T.B. Yoits]

The basic problem is a country wide labor shortage. Covid has gotten to be an excuse to not show up when ever someone wants time off.

Labor shortage, yes. COVID related, yes. Employees using it as an excuse to show up at work; possible, but I'm seeing other trends.

One large trend I'm witnessing first hand is retirements from individuals who could have retired years ago. They're not putting up with mask mandates, social distancing nonsense, testing fallacies, etc. They have no desire to work from home because they really were only working to get out of the house. Many of them are now watching the grand kids.

Another issue I'm seeing first hand is that a lot of part-timers are backing away from their second job. They're also not putting up with mask mandates, social distancing nonsense, testing fallacies, etc. It's not about unemployment benefits because they're still working their primary job.

[central_va]

The basic problem is a country wide labor shortage.

There is no such thing. There are only wage shortages.

[central_va]

Pay more.

[Paul R.]

True, and more. The employment numbers certainly do not give an accurate picture.

We have over 8 million reported active positive cases. Accurate test or not, those people will be told to quarantine. Then you have those they've exposed, found by contact tracing -- and there is a LOT of contact tracing still going on. They'll be quarantined too, at least until their test result comes back. This is a huge group. Then you have anybody with some symptom, be it from an allergy or some other respiratory bug (some are still going around). Add up all those included, then figure roughly 1/3 are employed, but temporarily "off" due to Covid. Then you have the "excuses" people: add them. Do not include people on legitimate vacations and such.

I believe this gives us on any one day at least 10 million "employed" people not actually working due to Covid.