‘Long social distancing’ could keep US workers on sidelines indefinitely

Several million Americans who left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic expect to remain on the sidelines indefinitely, according to a report.

Workers who chose to stay home because they fear getting ill or have physical impairments could be exacerbating the national labor shortage for years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

About three million workforce dropouts have no desire of resuming pre-COVID activities—including going to work, shopping in person or dining out—even after the pandemic ends, the newspaper reported, citing findings by a team of researchers.

The research team is calling the phenomenon “long social distancing,” and believes it will be a lasting scar of the COVID-19 pandemic. Workforce dropouts are typically women who lack a college degree and had worked in low-paying jobs, they added.

 “Our evidence is the labor force isn’t going to magically bounce back,” said Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University economist who was among the researchers who oversaw a year-long survey. “We still don’t see any change in these long social distancing numbers, which suggests this drop in labor-force participation may be quite enduring.”

A sharp decline in the labor force at the pandemic’s start led to shortages of workers and products that helped push inflation to a 40-year high. Despite rebounding significantly since March and April 2020, when 22 million people were put out of work, the ranks of employed workers as of this March were 1.2 million shy of their pre-pandemic level, according to the Wall Street Journal.