The headline is misleading and sensational, but the information in the story is not.
‘Like Europe in Medieval Times’: Virus Slows China’s Economy
Workers can’t return to their jobs as supply lines get snarled, extending the forced holiday and fracturing the country.
...
More than two weeks after China locked down a major city to stop a dangerous viral outbreak, one of the world’s largest economies remains largely idle. Much of the country was supposed to have reopened by now, but its empty streets, quiet factories and legions of inactive workers suggest that weeks or months could pass before this vital motor of global growth is humming again.
The global economy could suffer the longer China stays in low gear. It has been hampered by both the outbreak and its own containment efforts, a process that has cut off workers from their jobs and factories from their raw materials. The result is a slowdown that is already slashing traffic along the world’s shipping lines and leading to forecasts of a sharp fall in production of everything from cars to smartphones.
...
Major companies said their factories remained closed or were running slower than usual. Ford Motor said that its joint venture with one of China’s biggest state-owned firms was restarting some production, but that it would “ramp up our production over the following weeks.”
General Motors said that it would reopen the first of its huge assembly plants in China only on Saturday, and would gradually reopen the rest over the following two weeks, “based on local employees’ safety readiness, supply chain readiness and product inventory needs.”
...
The municipal government in Shanghai, home to more than 20 million people and a vast array of businesses, said that only 70 percent of the city’s manufacturers were taking steps to resume production. Few have actually received permission to do so.
Businesses “want to protect staff, but also nobody wants to get caught offsides when it comes to the labor law or the daily announcements from the government,” said Ker Gibbs, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
It is not yet clear how the ripples from China’s slowdown will affect the United States. Businesses that rely on assembling a lot of different parts from various suppliers could become the hardest hit. At the top of that list is the auto industry — a single car may require as many as 30,000 parts from various suppliers.
‘Like Europe in Medieval Times’: Virus Slows China’s Economy
Workers can’t return to their jobs as supply lines get snarled, extending the forced holiday and fracturing the country.
...
More than two weeks after China locked down a major city to stop a dangerous viral outbreak, one of the world’s largest economies remains largely idle. Much of the country was supposed to have reopened by now, but its empty streets, quiet factories and legions of inactive workers suggest that weeks or months could pass before this vital motor of global growth is humming again.
The global economy could suffer the longer China stays in low gear. It has been hampered by both the outbreak and its own containment efforts, a process that has cut off workers from their jobs and factories from their raw materials. The result is a slowdown that is already slashing traffic along the world’s shipping lines and leading to forecasts of a sharp fall in production of everything from cars to smartphones.
...
Major companies said their factories remained closed or were running slower than usual. Ford Motor said that its joint venture with one of China’s biggest state-owned firms was restarting some production, but that it would “ramp up our production over the following weeks.”
General Motors said that it would reopen the first of its huge assembly plants in China only on Saturday, and would gradually reopen the rest over the following two weeks, “based on local employees’ safety readiness, supply chain readiness and product inventory needs.”
...
The municipal government in Shanghai, home to more than 20 million people and a vast array of businesses, said that only 70 percent of the city’s manufacturers were taking steps to resume production. Few have actually received permission to do so.
Businesses “want to protect staff, but also nobody wants to get caught offsides when it comes to the labor law or the daily announcements from the government,” said Ker Gibbs, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
It is not yet clear how the ripples from China’s slowdown will affect the United States. Businesses that rely on assembling a lot of different parts from various suppliers could become the hardest hit. At the top of that list is the auto industry — a single car may require as many as 30,000 parts from various suppliers.
