Is there a link between long COVID and the U.S. labor shortage?
A new report from The Brookings Institution suggests that long COVID could account for 15% of all unfilled jobs.
“Long COVID” is one of those terms that gets lost in the conversation about COVID-19 patients. — a fact that The Brookings Institution acknowledges in a recent report linking a range of debilitating symptoms in patients to the current labor shortage in the United States.
“[W]e know little about these people — how many there are, why they stay sick, or what the impact is on their lives,” writes Katie Bach, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Metro, in a report titled “Is ‘long COVID’ worsening the labor shortage?” “Among these knowledge gaps is the fact that public health and economics experts have almost no understanding of long COVID’s economic burden.”
Bach outlines three ways long COVID is helping keep millions of people from getting back to work.
1. Long COVID could account for 15% of all unfilled jobs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that through October 2021, more than 100 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 had COVID-19 — with studies suggesting that as many as 33% still experienced symptoms months later. Bach cites two studies of long COVID patients that suggest approximately 1.1 million Americans might not have been working at any given time due to lingering symptoms.
“Additionally, some long COVID patients reduced hours rather than taking time off,” she writes, noting one study that put that number at 46%. “If those workers reduced their hours by only a quarter, that would increase the labor market impact to 1.6 million full-time equivalent workers. In other words, under reasonable assumptions given the data available, long COVID could account for 15% of the nation’s 10.6 million unfilled jobs.”
2. Long COVID is rarely part of labor shortage discussions.
“Poor data may be the culprit,” Bach argues. “There is no clear and comprehensive source of data for how many people are not working due to long COVID.”
She notes that the United States Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, designed to quickly collect data to measure household experiences during the pandemic, does not provide response options that specify long COVID. Similarly, the Current Population Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, does not offer clear options for respondents with long COVID.
3. Better long COVID data could inform disability policy, public health guidance, and more.
Bach suggests that “the Census Bureau and BLS should work with National Institutes of Health teams researching long COVID as well as long COVID patient advocacy groups.” They are the best sources to identify trends and potential data pitfalls that Bach says survey designers might otherwise miss.
“Until we have data from a representative sample that accurately capture the extent of the impacts to the labor force, economists and policymakers are likely not going to consider long COVID an economic issue or recognize it for the mass disabling event it is,” Lisa McCorkell, co-founder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (which is focused on long COVID) told Brookings.
Bach agrees, adding that better data can lead to better predictions about the labor market’s evolution. “It may also prompt the government to improve disability standards so that people with long COVID can request accommodations or secure benefits, issue health guidance that takes into account the economic burden of large-scale disability, and provide more federal dollars for long COVID research and medical care,” she writes. “The possibilities are vast, but first, we need the data.”