Public health emergencies
"Essential services" may also refer to those services that are vital to the health and welfare of a population and so are essential to maintain even in a disaster. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many jurisdictions ordered non-essential services to close for several weeks in an effort to control the spread of the virus. The United States Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a nation-wide guidance document that defined activities that the Agency had determined to be "essential" to the control of the pandemic and the management of its effects. Examples of industries in which at least some workers were classified as "essential" during the pandemic included: * Health care, public health, and human services * Law enforcement, public safety, and first responders * Food and agriculture * Energy * Water and wastewater * Transportation and logistics * Public works * Communications and information technology * Other community-based essential functions and government operations * Critical manufacturing * Supply chains * Retail and wholesaling * Food services and accommodations * Institutional, residential, commercial, and industrial maintenance * Manufacturing and production * Construction * Financial activities * Resources * Environmental services * Utilities and community services * Communications industries * Research * Justice * Business regulators and inspectorsReferences
{{reflist Labor relations Labour law