Amidst an ongoing U.S. labor crisis, a Brookings Institution report has found that long-term effects of COVID-19, or long COVID, may be playing a big role in the struggle to find workers. According to study data, as much as 15% of current job vacancies may be the result of people sidelined by often-debilitating long-COVID symptoms: extreme fatigue, aches and pains, breathlessness, cognitive dysfunction (“brain fog”), etc.

Long COVID Often Ignored Despite Statistics

The data suggest that millions of people may be unable to re-enter the workforce due to long COVID. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on January 4, 2022 a record-high 10.6 million job openings in the U.S., which economists often attribute to factors such as low wages, poor work conditions and childcare access, and fear of contracting COVID-19; yet long COVID is rarely considered as a possible hindrance.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 100 million Americans aged 18-64 have had COVID-19 as of October 2021. Since studies suggest that 27%-33% of these people have lingering symptoms months after the disease, some 31 million Americans of working age will have had long COVID or may still be living with it.
• Assuming that people were sick for an average of 3 months, roughly 4.5 million people may have been suffering from long COVID at any point in the past 20 months.

Most of these 4.5 million people with long COVID continue working.

• Two separate studies, including one published in The Lancet, showed 23% and 28%, respectively, of people with long COVID were not working because of their illness. This means that about 1.1 million Americans would have been out of work due to long COVID at any given time.
• An additional 2.1 million people would have reduced their work hours instead of taking time off, according to further findings in the same Lancet study. With just a 25% reduction in work hours, the equivalent of roughly another 500,000 full-time workers would have been sidelined, bringing the total to 1.6 million working-age Americans not working due to long COVID.

“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,” writes Brookings’ Katie Bach.

More Data Needed to Inform Policy and Prioritize Research

Since these numbers are estimates, more research is needed to better understand long COVID’s effects on the labor market. Bach says a possible reason why long COVID isn’t part of the U.S. labor shortage discussion is the lack of concrete data on how many people aren’t working because of long-COVID disability.

To help fill this knowledge gap, Brooking recommends the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics incorporate long-COVID disability questions into their Household Pulse Survey and Current Population Survey. To best help policymakers, asking the right questions is critical, and long-COVID researchers, as well as patient advocacy groups, could help with this process.

Acquiring the right data, Bach explains, could accomplish a number of things for people with long COVID, such as work accommodations, federal disability benefits, and more federal funding for long-COVID care and research.

*Plescia, M. (2022, January 20). 15% of job vacancies are due to long COVID-19, report finds: 6 things to know. Becker’s Hospital Review. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/15-of-job-vacancies-are-due-to-long-covid-19-report-finds-6-things-to-know.html

Much about the novel coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, is still not fully understood. As research progresses and our knowledge of the virus increases, information can change rapidly. We strive to update all of our articles as quickly as possible, but there may occasionally be some lag between scientific developments and our revisions.