• As the Covid-19 pandemic eases and national economies emerge from suspended animation, demand for energy, labour and transport has surged
  • The sudden acceleration is putting a huge strain on the cross-border supply chains that keep factories open and shelves stocked
  • As holidays approach, companies expect shortages and price rises in everything from artificial Christmas trees and sports goods to Thanksgiving turkeys 
  • Retailers say basics including toilet paper could once again be in short supply
  • Broken links in the global supply chain continue to drag down the economy
  • US is also experiencing a massive labour shortage, especially in the leisure and entertainment sector 

Delays and price hikes are anticipated in the United States for holiday merchandise, a Federal Reserve official warned Sunday, calling for more to be done to boost the workforce.

‘Right now, we see consumers trying to get out early and spend their money to get their goods before they run out,’ Mary Daly, head of the San Francisco branch of the US central bank, told CBS.

When shopping for the upcoming holidays, ‘people are buying it now and they’re being told oftentimes they can’t get it until after the holiday has passed,’ she said.

‘So there are going to be delays,’ as well as ‘some pressure on holiday item prices,’ the Fed official said.

To address this, it will be necessary to ‘get more supply to the labor market, to the goods market.’

In other words, to speed up the flow and production of goods, people who have left the labor market because of the coronavirus pandemic and now cannot return due to constraints such as childcare or health concerns, must be enabled to return to work.

The US labor market, which showed a strong rebound in June and July, adding more than a million jobs in each month, slowed in August and September.

In September, only 194,000 jobs were created.