(OPINION) Where did all the workers go? That is a great mystery that continues to be unsolved. All over America, businesses are literally hiring anyone with a pulse and there are “help wanted” signs all over the place.
But the number of people that are actually working is still close to four million below the pre-pandemic peak. What happened to all of those extra workers? They certainly aren’t on unemployment, because claims for unemployment benefits are the lowest that we have seen “in decades”. So where are they?
It is almost as if millions upon millions of people have disappeared from the system completely over the past couple of years. Needless to say, this lack of workers is having a dramatic impact on the delivery of basic services all over the country. For example, some of the biggest banks in the U.S. are “temporarily” closing lots of branches due to a lack of staff…
Big banks are temporarily closing branches across the nation as they cope with labor shortages and ongoing complications from Covid-19, including the arrival of the more contagious Omicron variant. It mirrors widespread branch closures at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 when many thought the economic lockdown would be measured in weeks.
The new round of temporary closures — sometimes occurring sporadically — are sparking anger, confusion, and angst among customers. If your local bank branch is now closed, it may be quite a while before it opens again. In fact, Bank of America is telling their customers that some branches may be shut down “for an extended period of time”…
“Many of our locations may have reduced hours, alternate days of operations or may have been temporarily closed,” Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) tells customers on its website. “We are doing everything we can to reopen as soon as possible, though some locations may remain closed for an extended period of time.”
Even more alarming is what staffing shortages are doing to hospitals all across the nation. Without enough qualified personnel, many hospitals are having a really difficult time delivering basic services right in the middle of this pandemic, and the cost of hiring replacements has even pushed some facilities into bankruptcy… The U.S. healthcare profession is suffering its own Great Resignation, pushing more hospitals into financial distress just as a winter surge of the coronavirus hits. READ MORE
