Retailers in Poland – and especially small businesses – are struggling to plug gaps in staffing as a record number of people have been put in COVID-19 quarantine. With infections still rising and the holiday shopping season underway, the issue may become even more pressing.
There were 633,857 people in quarantine in Poland as of this morning (from a population of around 38 million), according to today’s health ministry data. That is slightly down from the all-time record of 744,912 on Saturday, but still remains higher than was ever recorded before the current wave of the virus.
The highest ever number of people in Poland are in quarantine amid an ongoing surge in Covid infections.
Almost 740,000 (around 1 in every 50 people) are currently quarantined. During the last two waves of the virus, the peaks were around 500,000.
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According to Wiadomości Handlowe, a retail news service, as the number of retail workers in quarantine grows, businesses are increasingly struggling with a shortage of staff.
There are between 1.5 and 2 million people working in retail in Poland, and Wiadomości Handlowe estimates that tens of thousands of those may be currently in quarantine.
Businesses are therefore being forced to rearrange schedules and plug gaps, with small outlets feeling the heat the most. “In extreme cases, it may turn out that on a given day there will be no one to stand behind the counter,” according to the news service.
The shortages may become more pressing as the holiday shopping season begins. Moreover, as a growing number of chains have been sidestepping the government’s Sunday trading ban, their staffing needs have increased.
Infections are continuing to rise rapidly. The current seven-day rolling average of daily new COVID-19 cases is almost 23,300. A week ago the figure stood at around 20,500.
This government had until today avoided introducing any new restrictions, arguing that they would be ineffective and even counterproductive. However, the emergence of the omicron variant prompted the health minister to announce a raft of tougher measures today.
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Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
