One of the largest restaurant chains in the U.S. said that more than 13,000 employees missed work in January, due to the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Orlando-based Darden Restaurants, owner of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and other restaurants, said in an earnings call Thursday that the omicron variant affected three times as many workers as the earlier delta variant of the COVID-19 contagion. The company employees about 175,000.
Some of the company’s 1,885 restaurants temporarily lost more than 40% of their staff during the outbreak, forcing some stores to limit their hours or offer takeout service only, the Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported.
“The dramatic spike in cases created the most difficult operating environment since the initial onset of COVID two years ago,” CEO Gene Lee said during the call.
Darden had launched a paid sick leave plan for employees in March 2020 as the pandemic began to spread.
By February of this year, staffing and sales had improved, company officials said. But the restaurants have had to raise prices 3.7% due to supply chain disruptions and inflation, and more inflation is expected, executives noted.
Meanwhile, a new omicron subvariant, dubbed BA.2, will soon lead to a rise in cases in the United States just as many areas relax mask-wearing protocols, experts said. The subvariant now accounts for one in three cases in the U.S. and about one in four in the Southeast, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Thursday.
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