The missing workers who are never coming back
Now, research has started to emerge and key public figures like Powell are starting to talk about it explicitly.
- "Close to a half a million who would have been working ... died from COVID," Powell said while talking about the U.S. labor shortage.
- Go deeper: In a footnote to a speech he gave on Nov. 30, Powell estimates that 400,000 working-age Americans died in excess of what was anticipated pre-pandemic.
State of play: Compared to pre-pandemic projections,
there are around 3.5 million people effectively missing from the American workforce,
as Powell explained in that speech at the Brookings Ins ution.
- This number includes older workers who left the labor force earlier than expected. "These excess retirements might now account for more than 2 million of the ... shortfall," he said.
- The other 1.5 million comes from a decline in immigration and "a surge in deaths."
- Overall, 1.09 million Americans lost their lives to COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins data.
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/the...er-coming-back