Covid caused huge shortages in US labor market, study shows

At least 500,000 people have permanently disappeared from the workforce, analysis says

Research into the lingering effects of Covid-19 on the US workforce has confirmed what anybody who has waited an extended time for a delivery - or been unable to get a restaurant table - already knows: the pandemic has caused massive shortages in the labor market.

On top of the quarter-million people of working age who have died from coronavirus, at least twice that number across all ages have permanently disappeared from the workforce, the analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows.