The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted the Manufacturing industry worldwide. With lockdowns changing the way we work and disrupting purchasing habits, many manufacturers shifted their attention to making personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline workers. This pivot was a critical step in ensuring the resilience of the manufacturing industry. Despite the potential for the pandemic to devastate manufacturing, the U.S. economic recovery was much quicker than expected. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while the pandemic might have provoked the deepest economic recession since World War II, it was also the shortest, with contracted economic activity restricted only to March and April 2020. Since then, the recovery has been much stronger than many analysts anticipated.

However, while the economic data is trending in the right direction, injuries and fatalities are not. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 5,486 workplace fatalities in the … Read more...