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Empty shelves have returned at supermarkets as grocery employees call out sick and truckloads of food arrive late.

That’s one of the latest outcomes of the omicron variant, which is straining the workforce. Investors are seeing the pressure and bracing for a longer period of high costs for labor, transportation and food.

Shares of major grocers including Albertsons, Kroger and Walmart fell Tuesday. Albertsons shares fell 9.75% to $28.79 at market close, after the company detailed the supply chain challenges and inflated costs it’s seeing on its earnings call. The dive in its stock occurred even though the grocer raised its fiscal 2021 forecast. Shares of Kroger fell about 3%, while Walmart shed less than 1%.

Covid cases and hospitalizations have hit records in the U.S., as the highly contagious variant spreads. The country reported about 1.5 million new cases on Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Hospitalizations have surpassed last winter’s peak, with 144,441 Americans hospitalized with the virus as of Sunday, according to data tracked by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Grocery store workers are feeling the effects of omicron, too. Samantha Webster helps replenish coolers with butter, gallons of milk and more as dairy manager of a Safeway store in the San Francisco Bay Area. Safeway is owned by Albertsons.

Since early December, she said more and more employees have had to take off from work because of getting Covid or having close contact with someone who is sick. She said 15 employees are currently out of the store’s nearly 60-person staff.

Fewer pallets are arriving from Safeway’s warehouses and there are not enough grocery workers to help unload them, she said.

In the dairy department, there are gaping holes where there used to be cream cheese and yogurts. Fresh bagels and loaves of bread are missing in the bakery aisle. And in the produce department, potatoes are running low.

In other aisles, she said there are signs of strain, too, such as a shelf filled with cans of clam chowder soup because other varieties, like minestrone and pea soup, did not arrive.

“The shelves are becoming more and more bare,” she said. “One person can’t keep an entire department going.”

Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said on the call that the grocer has had low inventory or missing items in some categories for several months. He said the latest spike in Covid cases is prolonging some of those out-of-stocks.

“We were expecting that supply issues to get more resolved as we go into this period right now,” he said on the call. “Omicron has put a bit of a dent on that. So there are more supply challenges and we would expect more supply challenges over the next four weeks to six weeks.”

The new coronavirus variant is exacerbating worker shortages across industries, from restaurants and retailers to airlines. Company leaders are being forced to make tough decisions, such as slashing service hours, canceling flights and closing stores. That has started to show up in the sales numbers, too. Lululemon is among the retailers that have warned that fourth-quarter earnings and revenue would be on the low end of estimates as it feels the effects of having reduced hours and limited staff.

For grocers, though, the challenge may be felt more because it is low-margin business where companies often have less room to raise employee wages, pay for overtime or pass on higher costs to customers. Some shoppers have less money to spend, too. The child tax credit, which gave families monthly payments, ended in December.

On Tuesday, Albertsons leaders said that costs have risen on ingredients, packaging, transportation and labor. They said the grocer has passed through some of that inflation, but has tried to hold the line on prices of essential items that customers buy frequently.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, with a seemingly clear path to a second term heading the central bank, declared Tuesday that the U.S. economy is both healthy enough and in need of tighter monetary policy.

As part of his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Powell said he expects a series of interest rate hikes this year, along with other reductions in the extraordinary help the Fed has been providing during the pandemic era.

“As we move through this year … if things develop as expected, we’ll be normalizing policy, meaning we’re going to end our asset purchases in March, meaning we’ll be raising rates over the course of the year,” he told committee members. “At some point perhaps later this year we will start to allow the balance sheet to run off, and that’s just the road to normalizing policy.”

He made the remarks during a 2½-hour session that included both praise for the Fed’s handling of the economy and criticism over perceived ethical lapses from central bank officials. Some Republican senators also expressed worries over whether the Fed was veering too far from its stated objectives of price stability, full employment and banking oversight.

Ultimately, though, Powell appeared headed toward a successful confirmation from the full Senate. Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Pennsylvania Sen. Patrick Toomey, the ranking Republican, both said they plan on supporting President Joe Biden’s nomination. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has said she will oppose the nomination, after calling Powell “dangerous” during a hearing last year.

Many of the questions from both sides of the aisle centered on inflation, which is running at a close to 40-year high. After declaring the surge “transitory” for much of 2021, the Fed has pivoted on inflation and is expected to raise rates three or four times this year in quarter percentage-point increments.

Higher interest rates control inflation by slowing down the flow of money, which has been running rapidly through the economy as the Fed and Congress have combined to provide more than $10 trillion worth of stimulus.

“If we see inflation persisting at high levels longer than expected, then if we have to raise interest more over time, we will,” Powell said. “We will use our tools to get inflation back.”

In addition to rate hikes, the Fed also is tapering its monthly bond purchases, which have added more than $4.5 trillion to its balance sheet since the early days of the pandemic. Officials also have indicated they will start decreasing the balance sheet later this year, mostly likely by allowing a set level of proceeds to run off each month, though the Fed also could sell assets outright.

Powell said the moves are in response to an economy that has both a strong jobs picture, with an unemployment rate at 3.9% in December, but with inflation expected to top 7% year over year for the same period.

“What that’s really telling us is that the economy no longer needs or wants the very highly accommodative policies that we’ve had in place to deal with the pandemic and its aftermath,” Powell said. “We’re really just going to be moving over the course of this year to a policy that is closer to normal. But it’s a long road to normal from where we are.”

He faced some questioning about why the Fed got its inflation call wrong, and he again cited issues mostly related to the pandemic, which has seen clogged supply chains, sparsely stocked store shelves and rising prices that Powell said could threaten the recovery.

“If inflation does become persistent, if these high levels of inflation get entrenched in our economy and people’s thinking, then inevitably that will lead to much higher monetary policy from this,” he said. “That could lead to a recession and that will be bad for workers.”

Powell also faced questions about a controversy in recent months over the financial activities of several officials around the time the Fed was about to implement a series of rescue measures just before the pandemic declaration.

Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida announced Monday that he is resigning a few weeks ahead of the end of his term following additional disclosures about his buying and selling of equity funds. Regional Fed presidents Eric Rosengren of Boston and Robert Kaplan of Dallas resigned in 2021 following similar disclosures.

Powell said the Fed soon would be publishing rules that would prohibit similar activities without 45 days’ notice.

“The old system was in place for decades and then suddenly it was revealed insufficient,” he said of the prior rules.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee as part of his confirmation process to head the central bank for a second term.

Powell will deliver prepared remarks then take questions from panel members. In making his case for another term, he said the economy is recovering strongly from the pandemic plunge and the banking system is in solid shape.

At the same time, he expressed concerns about inflation and said the Fed will take the necessary steps to control rising prices.

“The Federal Reserve works for all Americans. We know our decisions matter to every person, family, business, and community across the country,” he said in his statement to the committee. “I am committed to making those decisions with objectivity, integrity, and impartiality, based on the best available evidence, and in the long-standing tradition of monetary policy independence.”

Powell’s appearance will be followed Thursday by a hearing for current Fed Governor Lael Brainard, who has been nominated for the vice chair position.