According to Goldman Sachs, the percentage of the adult population not working due to Covid-related reasons has tripled between December and January.
The Wall Street bank, citing the Census Bureau's latest Household Pulse survey of nearly 75,000 respondents, said the share of adults not working for virus-related reasons rose from 1.2% in December to 3.5% in January.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, explained on Twitter that the survey shows a staggering 12 million people "were not working because they were sick with the virus, caring for someone who was sick, Or there was a fear of getting sick."
The survey, conducted in the first 10 days of January, said Zandi, "is more evidence of the economic damage Omicron is doing."
The rapid spread of omicrons has caused significant disruption in recent weeks, with workers falling ill and forcing others into quarantine. Everything from garbage collection and emergency services to airlines has been disrupted.
"Public work workers, such as those near schools and emergency service providers, were particularly isolated because of the virus," Goldman Sachs economists wrote in the report.
Goldman Sachs said an average of 8% of flights were canceled every day between December 27 and January 7. However, recently it has become easier to cancel flights before weather-related issues, "suggesting less impact from worker absenteeism," the report said.
Meanwhile, Omicron is prompting Americans to change their behaviour, dealing a blow to Covid-sensitive sectors of the economy.
"There has been a sharp decline in activity in virus-sensitive services compared to the previous month," Goldman Sachs said.
For example, air travel has slowed down. According to Goldman Sachs, the number of passengers processed at airports by the Transportation Security Administration has fallen from 84 percent in November to nearly 72% of the level two years ago.
American Airlines and United Airlines both warned of lower demand this week due to Omicron. Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, said, "While Omicron is impacting near-term demand, we remain optimistic about spring and excited about summer and beyond."
Goldman Sachs said that tracking of diners at OpenTable's restaurants declined by a similar margin.