After sitting idle for weeks or even months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. assembly plants have finally restarted production, albeit with the occasional hiccup.
Despite an unemployment rate of 8.4 percent, the pandemic has, ironically, exacerbated the skilled labor shortage in U.S. manufacturing. Assembly plants around the country are facing staff shortages either because workers have been quarantined, because they are afraid of contracting the coronavirus, or—unbelievably—because they were making more on unemployment than they were while working.