Amid a monthslong supply chain exertion, shoppers across the United States have recently noticed plenty of empty shelves at grocery stores.
Early on during the pandemic, shelves that usually contained toilet paper were bare. After nearly two years, some people are having trouble finding basic food staples such as meat and bread in stock when they go to the local grocery store.
Experts say there are several reasons some grocery stores are having trouble with food shortages and that those causes have converged into a perfect storm that is wiping shelves clean.
One factor is the labor shortage, brought on by the omicron variant of COVID-19, which began taking hold across the U.S., and the world, in December and has since been peaking. Some days the case count reached close to 1 million per day. The previous highest daily average of new coronavirus cases was about 250,000 per day in January last year.
While cases exploded, hospitalizations and deaths didn’t balloon at the same magnitude, mainly because the omicron strain is less deadly. In addition, nearly 3 in 4 people ages 12 and older have received at least two doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
Because of the flood of new infections, workers across the supply chain have been testing positive or feeling ill — and thus have been unable to go to work. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that even infected people with mild cases should stay home from work and isolate for five days, down from 10, to avoid adding to the spread.
John Rosen, an adjunct economics professor at the University of New Haven, explained to the Washington Examiner that supply chains aren’t only being affected by a lack of truck drivers, warehouse workers, or grocery store employees who call in sick, but also by the knock-on effect of school problems related to omicron.
For example, some school districts have decided to go back to remote learning, perhaps during the same hours that parents work part-time jobs. It could cause some workers at grocery stores to stay home with their children instead.
“People who work at grocery stores tend to be part-time people who have young children, so [when] the schools are closed, like they are in Chicago, that has a disproportionate impact on things like retail stores,” Rosen said.
Joseph Glauber, a nonresident senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that part of what is behind the recent grocery shortages could be an increase in demand. He noted that some people who went to more restaurants before omicron might be deciding to stock up on food at the grocery store and eating at home.
Still, Glauber said the shortages at grocery stores today are not the same level as in March and April of 2020. During the first weeks of the pandemic, people had taken to panic-buying or hoarding various groceries and goods out of fear of running out. Glauber said the same dynamic of people rushing to stores to snap up items like toilet paper isn’t nearly the same during the recent shortages.
He also pointed out that the market was “remarkably resilient” in working through the initial grocery shortages seen nearly two years ago.
The National Grocers Association, the trade association representing the independent supermarket industry, conducted a recent survey of its members and found that some grocers reported operating their stores with less than half of their standard workforce capacity for brief periods at the height of the latest wave.
“The prevalence of the omicron variant in both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, coupled with the lack of available testing resources, has further contributed to current staffing challenges,” a spokesperson for the National Grocers Association said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“As we’ve seen across the economy, product availability and price inflation are being driven by a perfect storm of factors including an ongoing shortage of labor across the entire supply chain, an acute shortage of truck drivers, increased ingredient inputs, and occasional disruptions in product packaging production.”
The spokesperson also said that weather emergencies had been a factor in some parts of the country.
Glauber pointed out that the East Coast, in particular, has faced some troubles with winter storms causing snarls in the supply chain by delaying and limiting truckers from transporting goods to stores.
Earlier in January, a winter storm blew through Virginia, resulting in unpassable roads, including shutting down parts of Interstate 95 for over 20 hours.
Shortages caused by weather are among the most temporary causes as roads are typically cleared within days, allowing truckers to deliver food once more.
Truckers are a vital part of the country’s food delivery supply chain. Due to warehouse labor constraints, truckers out sick with omicron or behind schedule have exacerbated shortages.
The trucking industry is strained, and the American Trucking Associations has sounded the alarm over driver shortages. Chris Spear, the president and CEO of the ATA, estimated last year that the industry is now down a record high of about 80,000 drivers amid the global supply chain crunch.
Glauber said consumers might start seeing their grocery stores better stocked once new cases of the omicron variant begin to decline. The drop is already happening in many areas on the East Coast inundated with the latest variant.
“Hopefully, all that works out as these COVID rates start to drop again,” Spear said.
