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By Rocky Swift and Satoshi Sugiyama
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese companies are temporarily ending their offices or postponing production as they battle a record wave of COVID-19, disrupting business in a country that has weathered the pandemic more than more complex economies.
Automakers Toyota Motor Corp and Daihatsu Motor Co last week halted production line adjustments due to worker infections. KFC Holdings Japan Ltd had to close some fast food restaurants and move in to fill in the gaps, while Japan Post Holdings Co temporarily closed more than two hundred post centres. .
The number of COVID cases in Japan has surpassed that of other countries, as the full influence of the BA. 4 and BA. 5 variants dominate global successes at home. Japan has recorded more than 1. 4 million new COVID cases abroad. week, according to the knowledge of the World Health Organization.
Companies are struggling to cope.
“We divided meal times into several time intervals and told staff to sit in one direction and not communicate at all,” Subaru Corp Chief Financial Officer Katsuyuki Mizuma recently told reporters, describing how the automaker seeks to fend off infections and production shutdowns.
Newly diagnosed COVID cases hit a record in Japan of nearly 250,000 on Wednesday. Hospitalizations and deaths are also increasing, but as drastically as in past waves due to the prevalence of vaccines and boosters.
Japan has had an enviable track record in its reaction to COVID, avoiding the disruptive lockdowns and high death tolls that have accompanied the pandemic elsewhere.
The country of 125. 8 million people has claimed more than 32,000 lives, a fraction of the death toll in the United States and Britain, for example.
Most likely, the latest outbreak will show whether it can its flexible reaction of “living with the crown” and restricting the economic impact, especially if the disruption that was felt recently worsens or lasts for a long time.
“There is still a shortage of semiconductors and that of the coronavirus is increasing lately,” a Toyota spokesman said last week.
“The long term remains unpredictable. “
The health government advises others who test positive to quarantine for 10 days and their close contacts to self-isolate for at least five.
Toshihiro Nagahama, lead economist at Dai-ichi Life Group, said production and retail will feel some pain as other inflamed people and their close contacts remain at home.
“As infections and close contacts increase, people’s confidence will be affected by fainting to eat, go shopping, etc. ,” he said.
SUPPLY CHAINS
The disruption has implications for a hard labor market at its tightest point in decades, especially for the small and medium-sized enterprises that make up the majority of Japanese companies.
Yoshiaki Katsuda, an occupational fitness expert at Kansai University of Social Welfare, said giant corporations can hire transitional staff to upgrade those who want to be absent, but are still vulnerable to supply chain headaches.
“If small businesses that get products . . . they have to close for a long time, the production of giant corporations may be affected,” he said.
The wave of infections is rumbling in transport.
Railway operator Kyushu Railway Co suspended 120 trains in southern Japan last week when 53 team members tested positive or in case of close contact with the cases. Mitsui OSKLines Ltd cancelled 4 ferry crossings in western Japan and bus operator OdakyuBus Co Ltd reduced dozens of routes through Tokyo.
The central government has delegated authority over the infection to prefectural governments, allowing them to accentuate precautions as they see fit. Twelve prefectures have enacted the measures with a focus on reducing risks to the elderly.
Support for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has declined in recent polls as COVID has risen, but a functionality through the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in last month’s elections has given him a break, said Tetsuya Inoue, a senior fellow at the Nomura Research Institute.
“At the moment, Mr. Kishida and his management are prioritizing maintaining economic activities than returning to very strict COVID measures,” Inoue said.
Inoue said that whatever the drag on the national economy caused by the wave of infections, the biggest challenge for Japan is the blockades in China and the ripple effects they have on chains of origin.
Relief for Japanese businesses and the economy as a whole could be in sight. Health experts expect this wave of infection to peak earlier this month.
“Given existing trends, infections will continue to spread in the long term, and there is no need to impose strict behavioral restrictions,” doctors at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research wrote in a recent paper.
(Reporting by Rocky Swift, Satoshi Sugiyama, Mariko Yamazaki and Nobuhiro Kubo; Editing by David Dolan and Robert Birsel)