Why swine flu will prolong the recession
Just as Britain comes out of recession, swine flu threatens to crush the green shoots. Even if it kills few, it will mean millions being away from work.
The possibility of 65,000 deaths is bad – though a very worst case, according to the medics – but the prospect of one worker in eight being too ill to work threatens to bring commerce and industry to a halt.
They won’t all be off work together, but they will be joined by the hypochondriacs who think they have swine flu, the shirkers who claim to have it, the cautious who are not prepared to mix with carriers on public transport and in workplaces, plus the parents who have to stay at home to care for young children. And this is a flu that claims young more than old.
Then there are the people willing to work but who cannot get in because public transport closes once drivers or signalmen are absent because they have the flu or any of the other reasons listed above that stop them working.
Or your employees come in but cannot work because a key worker – the heating engineer or the IT wizard, perhaps – is absent. Or they cannot process goods because an operative in an earlier stage of the production line is absent or a supplier cannot send materials. Or your salesforce is ready to sell but the customers are not at work.
The scope for disrupting the normal procedure of business is enormous.
So a wise company should prepare now for swine flu. That could mean stocks of tamiflu for key staff or it could mean greater stocks of work in progress and raw materials to ensure the workforce is not subject to blockages. It means organising technology so that office staff can work from home; it may mean organising transport for when buses or trains do not operate. It means emphasising personal cleanliness and lots of other things that an employer would normally think beyond its remit.
With luck the pandemic will be even less severe than the experts fear; with luck it will not affect Britain as much as other countries or your company as much as rivals. But there will be no compensation for firms caught by the virus and for many, the financial strain will considerable.
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