About a third of people over 55 I've talked to in the last three years decided to go ahead and retire. Covid is usually two weeks from infection to recovery (seems to get 80% of the population once per year), and 30% of employees have "brain fog" for another 2 weeks - 6 months after. 1% of the population died across 2020-2021. These aren't small numbers.
No doubt that retirements are a big factor. I've been on a contract with an airline and am told that they had lots of folks peace out. Lots of institutional knowledge walked out the door, too.
