Nearly half of the US companies in China have said their global operations are already seeing an impact from business shutdowns due to the COVID-19 outbreak there, a poll by Shanghai’s American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) showed.
About 78 percent of the respondents also said they do not have sufficient staff at their Chinese plants to resume full production, as public health restrictions make it harder to workers to return to their jobs after an extended holiday.
The survey polled 109 companies with manufacturing operations in Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing and the wider Yangtze River Delta.
Forty-eight percent of respondents said plant shutdowns have already affected their global supply chains, while almost all others expect an impact within the next month, the survey said.
“The biggest problem is a lack of workers, as they are subjected to travel restrictions and quarantines, the number one and number two problems identified in the survey. Anyone coming from outside the immediate area undergoes a 14-day quarantine,” AmCham president Ker Gibbs said.
“Therefore, most factories have a severe shortage of workers, even after they are allowed to open. This is going to have a severe impact on global supply chains that is only beginning to show up,” he said.
Meanwhile, some employees who have made it back to work have reportedly been placed in quarantine at their factories, further delaying the resumption of normal production.
The AmCham survey also found that one-third of companies polled plan to move their operations out of China if their factories are unable to open, while nearly two-thirds of businesses expect demand for their products to be lower than normal.
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