Moreover, "the conventional wisdom that omicron presents no threat to the economy may prove too sanguine.” "Things are only likely to get worse in the near term,” he wrote in a note to clients. economist Andrew Hunter calculated that upwards of 5 million workers were forced to stay home last week alone. But then the hope is that, like a storm, it ends and then there’s a return to prior trends,” Bunker said.Īt Capital Economics, senior U.S. That means "this big, very, very large sharp shock to the economy and the labor market specifically. Only unlike the blizzard and even previous waves of COVID-19, the variant has quickly become a national event, with new cases reaching as many as 1 million a day last week. Nick Bunker, chief economist at online job-listing firm Indeed Inc., likens the impact of omicron to the blizzard of 1978, which dumped as much as 4 feet (120 cm) of snow on his native New England in less than 36 hours and yielded weeks of disruption but also a rapid recovery. 4, are unlikely to reflect the entirety of the impact, which is more likely to be measured in lost output due to sick days than lost jobs. The December jobs report released Friday, showing an unemployment rate at a fresh pandemic low of 3.9%, relied on data gathered mostly before the variant spread. Just how bad or enduring the omicron toll will be may take weeks to determine. "Our new normal is turning into another new normal.” On any given day last week, at least three of the company’s 110 locations were closed and as many as five were operating on reduced hours. "You just don’t know when it’s going to hit you,” said James Beall, chief executive officer of the Washington-area Ledo Pizza chain. Even if the hit is temporary, as most anticipate, the disruptions and closures are likely to slow the fragile rebound in some sectors and weigh on businesses’ future plans. The widespread sick absences are already constraining output, and several economists began the new year by downgrading their first-quarter forecasts.
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