(Bloomberg) — U.S. supply chains will take “some number of months” to normalize next year, and vaccine mandates for companies will help to address the disruptions as more people return to work, President Joe Biden’s commerce chief said.

As port congestion eases and people get vaccinated to reduce labor shortages, inflationary pressures should be lessened, Secretary Gina Raimondo stated.

Raimondo indicated that certain industries like automotive manufacturing already see an improvement in the supply-chain disruptions. Raimondo said that chief executives of major industrial companies, including Boeing (NYSE 🙂 Co., told Raimondo vaccine mandates would help to ease the congestion by making it easier for people to return to work and alleviating shortages.

“You’re going to see continuous but slow improvement, and I think you’re well into 2022 before it’s back to normal,” Raimondo said in an interview in Chicago on Monday. “People who are in the industry will tell you that the vaccine mandates will help a lot.”

Labor shortages, antiquated infrastructure, containers in the wrong places and free-spending U.S. shoppers have spurred an import surge that’s disrupted the flow of global trade. The Biden administration created a taskforce to address the problems in the manufacturing, transportation and retail sectors.

Raimondo stated that most inflationary pressures currently occurring are due to Covid-19-related factors such as supply-chain disruptions, labor shortages, and that reducing these will help to reduce prices. According to Raimondo, the U.S. has reached an agreement with the European Union to eliminate steel and aluminium tariffs.

Passage of the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill last week also will help ease inflation pressures because it won’t increase the U.S. debt and will enhance productivity via improvements in roads and shipping, Raimondo said.

While Raimondo said that vaccine mandates will help get people back to work, some rank-and-file workers have been resisting the Biden administration’s rules requiring government contractors to be inoculated, including at Boeing. About 11,000 of the planemaker’s employees have asked to be exempted from the mandate, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing a person briefed on the matter.

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