Employees at a fast-food restaurant in Sacramento, California, exasperated over working in stifling heat for low wages, demanded more pay and a new air conditioner – and got both.
Customer orders poured in to an Italian auto supplier, which struggled to get hold of enough supplies of everything from plastic to microchips to meet the demand.
A drought in Taiwan magnified a worldwide shortage of computer chips, so vital to auto and electronics production.
The global economy hadn’t experienced anything like this for decades. Maybe ever. After years in which ultra-low inflation had become a fixture of economies across the world, prices rocketed skyward in 2021 – at the grocery store, the gasoline pump, the used-car lot, the furniture store. Chalk it up to a surprisingly swift and robust economic recovery from the pandemic recession, one that left suppliers flat-footed and hampered by COVID-19 disruptions.
U.S. workers, having struggled for years to achieve economic gains, secured better wages, benefits and working conditions – and the confidence to quit their jobs if they didn’t get them.