Wendy Marcus was halfway through a recent meeting with senior leaders at Newell Brands Inc. when the news came that she had to leave immediately.
The Newell factory that manufactures Yankee Candles was once again short of workers, and the factory had Mrs. Marcus, an R&D manager, on the assembly line needed to pack the famous fragrant nods in gift baskets.
“I told them, ‘I have to do the overtime,’ and they just said, ‘OK, thank you, and keep going,'” Mrs Marcus recalled.
U.S. manufacturers have become better at protecting their factory floors and containing Covid-19 infections in their workforce. Despite the progress, they are still struggling to find enough people to man their plants. The shortage of workers suffocates the supply chains and delays the delivery of everything, from auto parts to candles, just as demand increases.
Among the bizarre consequences of Covid-19: Despite high unemployment levels, many employers are having trouble hiring enough workers. The unemployment rate remained constant at 6.7% in December. Weekly initial claims for unemployment benefits from government programs, an indication of layoffs, were also steady at about 790,000. It is sharply down from a peak of almost 7 million in March, but still about four times the average before the pandemic.