Congestion has been an issue affecting global supply chains for much of the pandemic, and system-wide labour shortages look set to exacerbate the problem. Business leaders and government health officials are warning that the omicron will increasingly have an impact on labour availability, reports Splash247.
Supply chain disruptions
Commenting on this issue on LinkedIn, Lars Jensen, CEO of liner consultancy Vespucci Maritime, said: “With the new wave of Covid more people get tested positive. This means more people have to call in sick from work – and that of course goes for all kinds of jobs – including port workers, truck drivers, warehouse staff etc.”
John Porcari, port envoy to the White House Supply Chain Task Force, said on January 5 that US ports are experiencing “some increased outages from longshore workers and others” that have so far not affected operations.
However, the US reported more than a million new cases of Covid on January 3; with that rate of spread, it is inevitable that ports and the players they interact with will begin to feel the effects of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Those effects won’t, of course, happen in isolation. Manufacturers and shippers are also anticipating labour shortages.
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Source: Splash247
